A fraudulent scheme with new victims is spreading in the country. Pretending deaf people are going around large retail chains and collecting donations under the pretext of supporting the construction of an “International Center for the Deaf, Mute and Poor Children“. They carry folders for signatures, but after signing they demand 20 leva from each citizen, NOVA reported.
For greater credibility, the fraudsters show a fake certificate from a non-existent association. Their activity is concentrated in busy areas — parking lots, malls and shopping centers. According to investigators, these are touring groups, mostly from Romania, who stay in one city for a few days, then move on to the next.
Street musician Georgi Dimitrov, known as the “Plovdiv Mozart“, fell for the scammers while playing in the center of Plovdiv. He noticed two girls and a boy pretending to be deaf and mute and stopping passersby from signing and donating money.
“People were giving them 20, 50, even 100 leva banknotes. When I followed them, one of the girls threw the list in the trash,“ said Dimitrov. Together with a friend, the musician detained two of the girls and called the police.
“I made a citizen's arrest. They started shouting and cursing in English“, he added.
The same scammers also fell for Krastyo Petrov – a young man with hearing impairment. He noticed that the girls were talking to each other, but not using sign language. When they asked for money to “build a center“, Petrov became suspicious and alerted the security.
“It turned out that about 120 leva had been collected on their list. However, the security did not react“, he pointed out.
The check showed that the “Association of the Deaf for People with Disabilities, Mute and Poor Children“, listed on the lists, does not exist. The Union of the Deaf in Bulgaria categorically denies having such an initiative.
“This is fraud and abuse of people's trust in the deaf“, said Milana Garkova, chairwoman of the National Association of Sign Language Interpreters.
According to the deputy district prosecutor of Plovdiv Plamen Pantov, most of the participants in the scheme are young people with Romanian citizenship. The money collected does not go to charity, but directly to the fraudsters.
So far, two Romanian women and one Frenchman have been convicted in Plovdiv. One received a year and six months suspended sentence, and the others - a year and three months each, also with a four-year probationary period.
The investigation shows that the groups also operated in other cities in the country. During the searches, about 300,000 euros were found, some of which were through bank transfers.