Caffe con latte? Milanese pensioners be warned

Pensioners in Milan pouring their early morning caffe con latte will be delivered a warning to beware of elegant and kindly young men.

So-called "Old Lady Crimes", in which the elderly are conned out of their savings, have hit alarming numbers in Italy, prompting a regional initiative to encourage the elderly to keep their wits about them.

Now Milan's central dairy is sending a message to pensioners' breakfast tables via their milk cartons. Every carton is to feature a comic strip in which an elegantly dressed stranger tries to charm an old woman.

Last year 800 pensioners were duped by con artists in a variety of guises. By May this year, 350 cases had been recorded.

And this week, in a police swoop, a gang of 10 suspected swindlers were arrested, with warrants out for a further seven. The conmen, most of them nomads moving between Milan and Turin, are thought to form a gang that targets the elderly.

The gang is suspected of having garnered as much as €400,000 (£260,000), half of which was in jewellery, in 40 stings since 1999.

Investigators are focusing on three main types of scam: the "American-style" scam, in which a story is spun about a legacy from an uncle; a con that features a doctor who needs to disinfect the house after it has been contaminated by a mysterious virus; and the common trick of posing as officials from telephone, electricity and gas boards.

Sometimes money is extracted through trust; sometimes a conman distracts a victim and an accomplice then steals from the victim's home.