Be careful! – Fake cop swindles money from foreign couple in Budapest

The Hungarian police caught a hustler who pretended to be a policeman and, together with his partner in crime, they cheated money from foreigners in Budapest.

According to Police.hu, a man asked for directions from a foreign couple on September 24. That is when another person approached them and showed them some kind of badge and pretended to be a Hungarian policeman.

He spoke to them in English and explained that he was looking for counterfeit money and asked both the couple and the man to give him some money so that he can inspect it and determine if it was fake or not, the police reported.

The couple only discovered later, in their hotel rooms, that they only received one-third of their money back.

According to Hvg, the couple pressed charges, and the Erzsébetváros police soon identified the fake policeman and his partner in crime.

The man who asked for directions was possibly the spotter, meaning that it might have been him who selected the hustlers’ targets. Also, as the fake cop took money from him as well, it is possible that when the fake cop gave the money back, he might have given the couple’s missing money to his partner, making swindling the money less suspicious.