Cousins are arrested after posing as police officers to con their victims

SANTIAGO. -  In Maipú, police arrested a woman, identified as Carolina Garrido, who is accused of making fraudulent telephone calls along with her cousin, Patricio Tenen Garrido, who assisted her from the Colina I prison.

Both individuals had been calling people, whom they chose randomly out of a phonebook for Papudo and La Ligua in the Region of Valparaíso, pretending to be law enforcement officials.

Once the victims believed them, they told them that one of their family members had been arrested and asked for a $200 thousand peso bribe to be deposited into the woman’s account in exchange for their freedom.

Capitan Óscar Muñoz indicated that the two assailants were using “the ´crank´ calls that we are always warning people about, don’t pay bribes because the National Police of Chile do not have this policy with regards to asking for money to have someone freed”.

While going through Patricio Tenen´s jail cell, prison guards found telephone guides, chips and cellular phones. Carolina Garrido will be taken to the La Ligua courthouse, where she will be arraigned on multiple charges of fraud.