A GROUP of teenagers have been arrested in connection with people pretending to be police officers and asking Redditch residents to hand over their bank details.
A pair of 15-year-olds and a 19-year-old from Redditch, as well as a 16-year-old from London were held by West Mercia Police yesterday afternoon (Sunday).
It follows incidents whereby a number of residents had been contacted by cold callers who, pretending to be officers, urged them to hand their bank card over to a courier, taxi driver, or to telephone the bank.
Victims were usually asked to ring the number on the back of their card in a bid to persuade them the call was genuine.
But the scammer would keep the line open so the person targeted would then unknowingly talk to another member of the group posing as a bank employee.
The incidents happened across Redditch between Wednesday (August 27) and yesterday (Sunday) and some of them resulted in the offenders successfully obtaining money.
Det Insp Jill Fowler said: “We would like to thank members of the public and the media for helping to raise awareness of courier fraud over the past few days.
“There were seven reported offences in Redditch over the weekend and none of them were successful.
“It is clear that the important security messages have been getting out and people have been extra vigilant.
“We would encourage people to continue to be vigilant and report offences to the police.”
All four teenagers currently remain in police custody.
