Alberto Julian Meza, a strange South American con man, was arrested recently in Paraguay for tricking people into believing that he was a lost, overgrown child. The 25-year-old mainly targeted older women – he dressed up in nappies and sucked on lollipops, pretending that he was lost and searching for his mummy. Believe it or not, it worked.

According to locals in the town of Villa Elisa, a suburb of Asuncion, Meza was regularly seen walking around in his adult diapers.. At first they had assumed that he was mentally ill, but in reality, he would fool women into letting him into their homes, and later steal whatever he could when they were fixing him a snack or bringing him a drink.

“I am surprised that the police have only just now arrested him,” said local resident Lara Orta Ornelas. “He has been doing this for years and I know the police have had complaints before, but it’s incredible they never realized the baby is actually a fully grown man.

Claudia Paiva, another local, said: “This man has been going around like this for a very long time and we are all amazed that they are only doing something about it now.

“Did the police not know him?” Sandra Dominguez Pereira questioned. “He was always around. It makes you wonder if he had connections in the right places.”

But according to a police spokesman, the reports that the officers had received always mentioned a child. They never realized that the victims, who were always elderly women, did not accurately describe the thief. So they never considered the man in the nappy to be a suspect. But when a person came forward to report his missing wallet, his accurate description finally led to Meza’s capture.

“When he saw the officers, he threw the wallet in a courtyard, but kept the money stuffed in his diaper,” the spokesman said. “It was recovered and returned to the victim,” he added.

Source: Hoy.com.py