Mari Paz is the latest victim in the city of Toledo. This happened this Wednesday in the parking lot of the supermarket in the Valparaíso neighborhood, which does not have security cameras outside.
This afternoon I was going shopping and a car driven by a woman crossed in front of hers. She asked for “a hardware store” and Mari Paz came to tell her that there was none in the neighborhood. The criminal, without getting out of her vehicle, showed her several models of drills on her cell phone, and Mari Paz, standing next to the nose of her car, informed her that she had to go to a shopping center.
Meanwhile, another person stole the victim’s purse from the passenger seat, where the victim had, among other things, her keys, cell phone, cash and documents. Moments later, Mari Paz got back into her car, drove a few meters and, looking at the passenger seat, realized her bag was gone. The deception had barely lasted forty seconds.
Police sources tell ABC that this is a variation of the crash scam, which involves, for example, throwing a note on the ground and removing the bank card from an ATM when the victim picks it up.
Mari Paz filed a complaint this afternoon at the Toledo police station, where she was informed that “there are cases every day in the city’s supermarkets.” In addition to bad mood and helplessness, Mari Paz has to change all the access locks to her house, cancel bank cards, renew the documents she had in her bag and buy another cell phone.
Of the driver, the victim only remembers that she spoke with a South American accent and that she had very long patterned porcelain nails. He didn’t even see his friend.
In the capital of Castile-La Mancha there are also cases of love theft, a theft technique that consists of thieves approaching their victims, mainly elderly people, with excuses to then squeeze them in their arms and steal their things. The old tocomocho scam also continues to proliferate. A scammer approaches the victim saying he has a winning lottery ticket and cannot get it back. The criminal offers to sell him the ticket for less than the price and, with the help of a second thief (hook), convinces him to give them money and/or jewelry.