Chicago Man Accused Of Swindling Burbank Senior In Phone Scam

BURBANK, IL -- A Chicago man with assorted aliases, birth dates and addresses has been tied to a cruel scam with international ties targeting senior citizens, prosecutors said. David, also known as Dawid, Markowski, 29, appeared before Cook County Judge Michael Kane on a felony charge of theft by deception. Markowski is currently in Cook County Jail on three similar charges and appeared in court wearing a tan jail uniform.

Markowski is accused of participating in a scheme where callers from outside the United States would contact senior citizens who spoke little English. The seniors would be tricked into paying thousands of dollars to assist their adult children in trouble. The prosecutor said Markowski would go to the elderly person’s home and collect cash and other valuables.

On June 8, 2017, Burbank police said that an unknown female caller contacted an elderly Burbank woman. Speaking Polish, the unknown caller posed as the woman’s daughter who was away on vacation. The caller told the elderly woman that she needed $6,000 in jewelry for a medical emergency. Markowski was sent to the woman’s home in Burbank to collect the jewelry, the prosecutor said. The unknown caller kept badgering the woman in the days to come, convincing her to give Markowski, the alleged bag man, more cash. In total, the prosecutor said the elderly woman gave Markowski $1,850 in cash and $4,500 worth of jewelry.

Burbank police went to talk to Markowski in jail, where he is awaiting trial on similar other cases from 2017. Markowski allegedly admitted to taking jewelry and cash from the Burbank woman. The prosecutor said home surveillance video also captured Markowski showing up at the woman’s house to collect money and jewels.

According to court records, Markowski facing three other felony charges of theft by deception of a senior citizen from March 31, 2017 and June 19, 2017. Markowski was arrested on Nov. 1, 2017, when the daughter of a 75-year-old Chicago man called police to report that a man, later identified as Markowski, was with her father at a Northwest Side bank.

Chicago police reports said officers entered the bank where they saw the elderly gentleman standing in the teller’s line. Markowski was found waiting outside in a car, where he allegedly said the man was his uncle and owed him money. When the elderly man told police he wasn’t related to Markowski, reports said Markowski got out of his car and ran away. After several sightings of Markowski running through the streets, police found him in a backyard crawling out from under a tarp, reports said.

Police learned that the 75-year-old man had been contacted on Oct. 31, 2017 by a female caller. Pretending to be the man’s daughter, the caller told him she was sick and needed $8,000. Reports said Markowski went to the man’s house to collect the cash. The man was contacted again the next day and told $5,000 more was needed. Markowski allegedly showed up at the man’s house and gave him a ride to the bank where police caught up with him. Police had the man talk to his daughter, who told him she wasn’t ill.

Kane ordered the man to be held without bond. Markowski is due back in court March 15 in Bridgeview.

“I can understand him getting out two times, maybe three, but not a fourth time,” the judge said.