Silver Crime

Crime committed by seniors.

“A group of well-to-do pensioners who lost their savings in the credit crunch staged an arthritic revenge attack and held their terrified financial adviser to ransom,” Roger Boyes reported from Germany for The Times of London:

The alleged kidnapping is the latest example of what is being dubbed “silver crime” – the violent backlash of pensioners who feel cheated by the world.

The financial advisor, James Amburn, was reportedly accosted outside his home by two Zimmer-frame-wielding pensioners, who bundled him in to the back of a car and drove him to a house in Speyer, Bavaria, where he was held for four days. Five pensioners, who lost approximately $3 million in savings – which they claimed Mr Amburn had invested (and lost) in the Florida property market – were said to be involved in the attack.

Amburn, who was allegedly tortured and beaten during his detention, made one unsuccessful attempt at escape; according to The Times:

The investment consultant’s break came when he was allowed to send a fax to a Swiss bank asking for the transfer of the funds demanded by the gang.

On the fax he pretended to refer to call options and to insurance policies (the German word for a financial policy is police). This came out as “call.pol-ice.”

The bank notified the German police and Amburn, who by then was wearing nothing but his underwear, was rescued by a team of forty armed officers.

The Telegraph reported that German police have nicknamed the kidnappers the Geritol Gang (after a multi-vitamin supplement), and claimed: “A physician had to be on hand to help [Amburn's] captors into police vans because of their various infirmities.”