A Thessaloniki court has sentenced a 22-year-old man to four years in prison after convicting him of stealing €100,000 in cash — an elderly woman's lifetime savings — that she had buried in her garden, in a sophisticated phone fraud that kept her distracted while an accomplice removed the money.
The scheme began with a call to the 76-year-old victim from someone posing as an accountant, claiming she owed money to tax authorities.
The fraudster gradually won her confidence before asking whether she held cash or valuables at home, framing the question as a tax declaration requirement. The woman disclosed the garden hoard.
The caller then instructed her to dig up the money, telling her he would send a drone to record it for official purposes.
While she remained on the phone and returned indoors, an associate entered the garden and took the cash.
The court denied the defendant bail pending appeal.
A second suspect believed to have entered the garden remains unidentified and at large.
The case reflects a broader shift in fraud tactics across Greece, where criminals have increasingly moved away from violent home invasions toward telephone and confidence scams that carry lower legal risk and lighter sentences while proving equally effective — particularly against elderly or isolated victims. Despite repeated police public awareness campaigns, such schemes continue to claim victims across the country.
Police urged the public, and elderly relatives in particular, never to disclose the location of cash or valuables to unknown callers regardless of the official pretext offered.