news, crime

"Brazen" Irish scammers have been linked to at least a dozen theft and fraud incidents across south-east Queensland. Men, women and children with Irish accents have allegedly been targeting Brisbane businesses and unsuspecting residents, scamming them of tens of thousands of dollars. Queensland Police Detective Superintendent Tony Fleming said a team of officers and Australian Border Force were working to track down the group of "disrespectful" men and women accused of the ‘highly brazen’ crimes. “The allegations being made are quite concerning ... what we’ve done in the last couple of days is brought it all together under one command to try and co-ordinate the investigations across the south-east.” Superintendent Fleming said police had received 12 reports, some dating back to January, that were suspected to involve the same people. The crimes include women distracting retail staff members so children can steal items, claiming to have sharp items or hair in meals at restaurants and committing to construction services, in some instances up to $25,000, and then not conducting the work. Superintendent Fleming said the scammers seemed well practised at the crimes they were committing. “There’s a bit of an art and craft to this, they generally remain highly mobile and they don't stay in one place too long and my experience tells me they are generally alert to the practices of police,” he said. “Based on the CCTV they don’t seem to be concerned in any way shape or form about being seen or detected, that either means they’ve done nothing wrong or they’re incredibly brazen and they have no respect for the law and more importantly have no respect for the people in our community. “With all the attention they’ve got ... I would suspect they would go mobile very quickly either elsewhere in Queensland or interstate.” Superintendent Fleming said police were going to find the group, it was just a matter of when. “We believe we know who some of these people are,” he said. "It’s one thing to make a mistake but what we’ve got before us appears to be a group of people who are incredibly brazen, disrespectful and they’re likely to continue to offend.” Superintendent Fleming stressed everyone was innocent until proven guilty, as nobody had yet been put before a court.

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