A woman was conned into handing over thousands of pounds following calls from a fraudster, who claimed to be a police officer.

Householders are being urged to be wary following a spate of scam calls in Lowestoft in the past few days from people claiming to be police officers.

Police are urging residents to be vigilant following three incidents this week.

On Wednesday, September 30 police received a call from a man at about 11.25am saying he had just been called by a fraudster, who claimed to be from the police.

The fraudster stated they had just detained the man’s carer, who has all his bank details, and asked him to confirm them over the phone. The man refused.

A second incident in Lowestoft was reported on Wednesday afternoon stating police had arrested a man, who had in his possession a large mount of money belonging to the resident.

Following enquiries it was established the resident had not lost any money at all.

On Thursday, October 1 a third incident was reported to police, which took place on Tuesday and Wednesday, September 29/30.

A police spokesman said: “An elderly female had a call from someone stating he was a police officer and claimed he had her nephew in custody.

“The caller asked her to go to her bank and withdraw a large sum of cash which she did. The caller claimed this was to help catch gangs who are putting fake notes into circulation.

She was told not to say anything to anyone. The victim was then informed that someone would attend her property.”

Police said a man, dressed in black and red and in a red van, arrived and picked up “the four figure sum of money.”

The police spokesman added: “The same process was repeated the following day with further money withdrawn from a bank and subsequently taken by the offender.”

If you have any knowledge of who the offenders were, or if you have also experienced similar suspicious activity, call Suffolk police, quoting crime reference number 37/57124/20.

The Suffolk police spokesman added: “Genuine police officers or staff would never approach residents and ask for cash withdrawals to be made or for people to purchase items on their behalf.”