A man from Budapest was legally sentenced to seven years in prison for regularly extorting money from elderly people in Debrecen, a spokesman for the Debrecen Tribunal said on Tuesday.
Dénes Dobó emphasized that the appellate court, upholding the decision of the Debrecen District Court, had sentenced the accused to seven years in prison, banned him from driving on the road and sentenced him to two years imprisonment for attempted fraud as a co-perpetrator. The man is also obliged to pay more than six million forints in compensation to one of the victims.
According to the facts on which the judgment is based
in June 2020, the unknown accomplices of the defendant in Budapest called the 70-year-old victim from an English area code and claimed that her husband had suffered a traffic accident. A man then surrendered to the victim’s husband in a crying voice and asked the woman to do whatever the callers asked.
The fraudsters asked the victim to count how much money she had at home and later hand it over to the police officer who arrived at her apartment. The deceived woman collected the money held in various currencies, worth more than six million forints, and then handed it over to the 55-year-old defendant, whom she thought was a police officer.
The accused arrived in Debrecen again a few weeks later to receive money from deceived people. His unknown peers also previously claimed three elderly victims by phone that their close relative had caused an accident, but if enough money is handed over, they will not file a report.
The conversation also became suspicious of two elderly victims, so callers dropped the call. However, the third woman, a 75-year-old woman, believed them and picked up 2.7 million forints from an ATM, and then waited at home for someone to go get the money.
However, on the basis of the emergency calls received in the meantime, the police found the accused waiting to receive the money in his car in the center of Debrecen.
Debrecen General Court
