Scammers posing as police trick two elderly women out of over €41,000 in Vilnius

Two elderly women in Vilnius were defrauded of more than €41,000 by scammers impersonating police officers and medical staff, Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT reported on Wednesday.

A 88-year-old woman reported to Vilnius County Police on Thursday that unknown individuals called her at home on Wednesday afternoon, speaking in Russian. Posing as clinic employees and police officers, they deceived her into handing over €12,000 to an unidentified man who arrived at her residence.

In a separate incident, a 79-year-old woman filed a report with Vilnius’s 3rd Police Commissariat, stating she had been contacted on Tuesday by an unknown woman claiming to be a police officer from St. Petersburg. The scammer convinced her to surrender €29,275, which she gave to another unidentified woman who visited her home.

Preliminary investigations into both fraud cases have been launched by authorities.