Lahore, Feb. 15 (ANI): A new breed of "English speaking con artists" are duping Lahore commuters by posing as young students in desperate need of money and fabricating stories about their sick parents.
With their mild vocal tones and accented English, these 'well-educated' swindlers actually convince people that they are in need.
"I gave 500 rupees to a boy at the Kalma Chowk traffic signal. He took my mobile number, saying that he would send a money order once he gets back home. But after three weeks, I saw the same person talking to another commuter at Main Market Gulberg," The Daily Times quoted Umair, a Lahore resident, as saying.
"It was really shocking that youngsters are swindling people in such a way," he added.
Most of modern-day swindlers can be witnessed fleecing the public at traffic jams on different city roads, and their techniques could include holding a punctured bicycle and asking people for money to get it fixed.
"The most impressive among them was a boy who talked to people and compelled them to take out their wallets within seconds. I could not hear what he was saying. The only thing I heard was a good English accent. I found out that he was making up stories to mint money," said a traffic warden on Gulberg's Main Boulevard.
Sharing his experience with one such swindler, Danish, a local businessman said, "I was catching a train at the railway station when a nervous-looking boy approached me and asked me if I had some money to buy him a ticket to Karachi. With tears in his eyes, he said he was a student of the Punjab University and had to reach home because his mother was sick... and he did not have enough money to buy a ticket."
"I did help him, but I felt like an idiot when after five days I saw the same boy at the same railway station, telling another person the same story. He saw me and ran away," he said, adding that it was really frustrating that youngsters who had so much energy and the ability to work had turned into swindlers. (ANI)
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