Bed bug scammers arrested after 'providing fake pest control to elderly victims'

08 December 2023 , 12:24

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Bed bug cases have surged in recent months (Image: Getty Images)

Two men who allegedly provided unnecessary bed bug treatments to elderly people in a scam have been arrested in France.

Many of the 48 victims were women in their 90s, in which the alleged con men would go to their homes and pretend to inoculate rooms with an aerosol while charging high prices, said police.

Fears have been rising over rising cases of bedbugs in France and also in the UK with the insects having made their way across the Channel. Thousands of households have been seeking help to deal with bed bugs in the UK and pest control firms in London say they have been ‘inundated’ with calls.

The number of people using Google to search for information on bed bugs has also rocketed nearly fourfold in the past month. Health experts have also warned about hysteria over the bed bug infestations and in eastern France police have detained two men on suspicion of fraud over selling the pest control services that were not needed.

They allegedly would go to the homes of people acting as officials and as well as using a spray, they would give people a cream they claimed would keep the bugs away - but was just a basic eucalyptus-scented cream, according to local reports.

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The alleged scammers, who would then charge up to £1,800, were detained by police in Strasbourg after visiting one of the homes they claimed needed treatment.

The French government has stepped in to calm nerves over the bed bug cases ahead of the Olympic Games next year. Last month Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne called a meeting of ministers to tackle the bedbug crisis. The country’s transport minister, Clement Beaune, also met with transportation companies to draw up a plan for monitoring and disinfecting.

The insects the size of an apple seed that neither jump nor fly get around easily with people travelling, and they have become increasingly resistant to insecticides. Bedbugs resistancy is shown in that they can stay alive for a year without a meal.

Without any blood, “they can slow their metabolism and just wait for us,” said Jean-Michel Berenger, an entomologist who raises bedbugs in his lab in the infectious diseases section of the Mediterranee University Hospital in Marseille. The carbon dioxide that all humans give off “will reactivate them … and they’ll come back to bite you.”

Tim Hanlon