A conman stole “a significant quantity of cash” from an elderly woman in Hollingdean yesterday afternoon (Thursday 14 June).
The theft came about half an hour after a bogus workman tried it on at a house in Whitehawk.
Sussex Police believe that the same man and another conman may have targeted pensioners at two other homes in Horsham and Lewes earlier in the day.
Similar offences were reported in Horsham and Hartfield last Saturday (9 June) and last Friday (8 June) respectively.
The force warned the public, especially the elderly, to be on their guard and said: “The bogus callers have been calling at homes and asking to look at water and gas supplies saying there has been an explosion or contamination which has affected them.
“They ask the householder to turn on the taps or put on their gas appliances to check.
“They keep the householder talking and close the kitchen or lounge door.
“An accomplice then goes upstairs and makes a search of the bedrooms.
“Victims have had large amounts of cash stolen.”
The conman who called at house in Wilson Avenue, Brighton, at about 3pm claimed that some cowboy builders had broken a nearby gas main.
He asked the woman to run some water and also to boil some to check that it wasn’t contaminated.
At this point she became suspicious. When the man asked if he could return later she said no.
When he left, she checked with the gas supplier who said that there was no emergency. She then called the police. Nothing appears to have been stolen from her home.
The conman was described as a slim white man, 5ft 9in tall, in his late twenties or early thirties and with short black hair.
He was wearing a white shirt with navy stripes and dark blue trousers.
At about 3.30pm a man knocked on the door of an elderly woman’s home in Stephens Road, Brighton, and said that there had been an explosion “in The Dip”.
