AN ELDERLY woman from Grays was conned out of her bank cards.

The woman, in her 80s, was the 19th person to be targeted in the borough since the start of November.

One of the men, pretending to be a Met police officer, rung her up to get her bank details, before another one knocked on her door.

She handed over cards to the fake officer who claimed arrests had been made while her accounts were being defrauded and they needed details for evidence.

She later contacted Essex Police and officers called her bank to cancel the cards. It is not clear if she has lost cash.

Last month, the Gazette revealed how tricksters had swindled hundreds of pounds from three residents in Grays, while failed with six others of the borough’s elderly folk.

From the start of December, there have been ten more cases. In the nine other cases, victims quickly realised callers were fraudsters and put their phones down.

On December 7, a woman from Grays received a call from a trickster claiming to be Det Con Adam Clark from Hammersmith and a week later, a woman in Stanford-le-Hope received the same call.

Det Sgt Neil Hudson said: “It is important that anyone who is called by these fraudsters lets us know so that we can investigate and establish which different stories are being used by the thieves and to see how they are targeting different areas.”

Anyone with information should contact 101 - or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.