‘He asked us for €70’

“He did the same thing to my parents. They were unknowingly feeding him the answers to the questions he asked, like ‘int qiegħed tagħrafni?’. He asked for €70 but they gave him €20,” one man told Lovin Malta on behalf of his parents. 

“Yes it also happened to me and my husband at Mater Dei Hospital on 10th February, and this man snatched and went off with the €20 we showed him that we had on us. We reported the matter to the Customer Care Office at the hospital,” the mother told Lovin Malta.

Asking these victims whether the description matches up with the one initially given, some details do match up.

“In all honesty, we cannot recognize him because he wore a cap, and facemask which he removed for just two seconds. We cannot remember his looks, nor the colour of his hair etc,” they said.

“The only thing I remember is his overall complexion was dark, and he was tallish,” they said. 

The conversation had was very similar to the ones previously recounted, involving a string of questions mostly based on whether the elderly couple was recognising the man.

‘This happened to me three years ago’

“Whilst I was reading your article yesterday, I remembered a similar situation that happened to me three years ago. I was at the car park near the hospital and was about to drive off, window wide open as it was summertime,” the woman recounted.

“This guy came up to my car and spoke to me, starting off with ‘Don’t you recognise me?’ Of course, I didn’t even know the guy. Anyway, he faltered at some guy’s name and I said ‘Oh yes Joe the aluminium guy’,” she said.

“He said ‘yes that’s right he’s my father’.”

“He then went on about how his father had to go to Gozo as his mother had fallen ill. Then he proceeded to give the other story about locking his keys in the car and that he only had €70 on him and that he needed another €50 as they were asking him for €170 to open his car,” she said.

The story used to lure them is the same as that which was fed to the elderly couple that had initially reached out to Lovin Malta. 

“At this point, I just told him I didn’t have any cash on me and had to go. So, I drove off before he could say there was an ATM along the path,” she said.

“So this guy has been telling this same story for years now. Seems to target vulnerable people near the hospital.”

If you or any relative of yours have encountered this man who has asked you for money and matches up with the given description, do not hesitate to get in contact with the police and [email protected] if you would like to speak about your experience in confidence

Have you ever encountered anything of the sort?