(jd) Three previously unknown people offered their services as tradesmen to an elderly couple from Allensteiner Straße last Friday. They then demanded a five-figure sum in return. A witness advised the couple not to pay this money as she did not think the price for the services allegedly provided was justified. On Sunday, the men visited the elderly couple again and took advantage of the fact that they were home alone: They offered further work services, for which they demanded and received a four-figure deposit. Yesterday (15.09.) they then demanded a further, significantly higher four-figure sum. As the couple did not have that much cash in the house, the men drove the elderly man to an ATM to withdraw the cash.
Also on Monday afternoon, the three men tried to collect the couple's car from a garage, where it was being repaired: they claimed to be the owner's grandchildren. As the garage employee was aware of the family circumstances of the car owner and the overall circumstances seemed suspicious to him, he informed the police. Several members of the Herford police force then immediately went to the owner's address on Allensteiner Straße. The three men were successfully apprehended while the money was still being handed over. They are a 56-year-old man, a 33-year-old man and a 24-year-old man from Osnabrück. The officers confiscated the cash that was handed over. The senior citizen told the officers that the three men from Osnabrück had already carried out work on the house and property the previous year, for which she had had to pay a five-figure sum in cash. The men were taken into police custody in Herford. They will have to answer for benefit fraud.