Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Black dollar scam

Emirates Today reports that a Dubai-based businessman was duped out of Dhs 150,000 by a gang of Liberian fraudsters.

The gang, from Liberia, conned the UAE national into believing a large stack of paper covered in black paint was a pile of genuine $100 bills disguised for “security purposes” to keep them from being traced in the impoverished West African country. He was promised that a chemical solution, when applied to the notes, would reveal them as high denomination US Treasury dollar notes that would be recognised as legal tender.

The businessman, who spoke to Emirates Today on condition of anonymity, said he applied the solution to one of the paintcoated notes and it turned back into a genuine $100 bill.

The scam artists said they had a safe full of dollars sitting in a vault in Liberia which had been coated with the black paint.

They claimed the paint had been applied to the notes for security reasons to stop them being discovered and traced because of the instability in the country.

They offered to bring the entire contents of the safe to the UAE for a fee of $6,000 (Dh22,000).

After a meeting between the two parties, the gang informed their victim that he needed to buy the correct solution to help transform the notes back into their original form as they had insufficient amounts of the solution to transform all the notes.

He handed over a further $34,000 (Dh124,780) in cash to complete the transaction, which would have still earned him a large profit had the notes been genuine.

Of course, once he applied the solution, the notes turned out to be fake, and all calls to the Liberians went unanswered.

Even though the poor businessman was conned, and he lost a lot of money, and one should never wish bad things for others, I think the guy deserved what he got!

First of all, he is a bleeping idiot for falling for such a stupid scam! The whole thing sounded fishy to me from the very beginning. Black paint? A special solution to remove the black paint off the bills? Please! It's just plain stupidity on his part to fall for something like this.

Secondly, he was obviously involved in some illegal operation. Money laundering maybe? He did not want his name to be disclosed, and the article never mentioned why he was accepting this money from the Liberians to begin with. He also did not want to contact the police about this because "he feared his reputation in the business community would be severely damaged".

Yeah right! You ain't foolin' no one buddy!

9 comments:

moryarti said...

lol - i read that story in the morning today. What a moron for falling for such as dumb scam...

Anonymous said...

What self respecting business person would agree to such an idiotic scam? I mean, if someone proposed that to me I think I would laugh in their face! (And I don't even pretend to be a good business person!) Why would the Liberians not keep the money to themselves and /or sell it for less than what it's worth?

Pffffffttttt! That's what I say!

Anonymous said...

I have a friend in Dubai who called me a couple of weeks ago. He's all excited (and worried) since he had answered an e-mail from some bank manager in Africa trying to transfer money into a bank account in Dubai from the account of a dead client...etc, etc. He had even given his personal cell phone number and the guy was calling him almost every day to work out details. Asking for letter head, account numbers. All of which my friend gave. Then he called me, worried more than anything about being caught.
My friend is not stupid. But wow. This stuff is so obvious to most people. I think they just get the ones that WANT to believe, and there are alot of them.

Dubai Sunshine said...

Rimouski, if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is! I'd tell your friend to be careful cause his story sounds a bit fishy to me.

And Chaz...I know...my sentiments exactly!

Anonymous said...

Aftab,well its true and it does workout we had tried here in avis uae rent a car....

Anonymous said...

All big mouths just shut up url think its funny imagine it was u dat lost 50 000 dollars how wud u feal? Evting u worked 4 is gone n u got noting left n u loose ur business or house bcos of finance n who ever said da guy deserves it will rot in hell n ur words will catch dont think u invincible nothing can happen 2 u

Anonymous said...

Asalam
I have also been Decieved in DUBAI UAE by two black guys Mr. "Fuma Makanda" used/cover name "DAVID" AND Mr. "EDMOND" use/ cover name "Mr. "TONY". Showed me fack papers ist in white and latter own in black conditions. They demanded 3000, 000 US Dollars from me. I sold my house, got Loans from diferent Banks and Credit Cards. These two guys attacked me with the more guys in my room durring the deal of BLACK DOLLAR BUSINESS and SNACHED MY 300,000 US Dollars. I got injured too they run out. Now a days I am seriously SICK from 2007 OF HCV+ (YARQAN ASWAD). I my LOST 13 years old my Job, my Career, my house, Money, Now a I am begging with along my wIFE, KIDS AND famuily
in Pakistan. My dear Muslim brothers and Sisters Please

This is Gang of Black People who are FRAUD GUYS. BEWARE OF ALL. And immediately inform POLICE if found or met any one of them....

With Best Wishes FEE AMAAN ALLAH
for any info. contact me through my email adress
Mr."Nemat" ahmed.noor51@yahoo.com

sam said...

All the fraud africans were arrested recently by Dubai police and the africans turned out to be most wanted international criminals

Anonymous said...

Yes beware of such black people they are commiting frauds.
First they made meeting in any lobby of dubai top ranked hotel. Where they are not staying just giving impression of high society to you.
Then they will ask you about private place to be arranged.
After that they will ask you to arrange big currency notes like 500dhr will clean 500usd.
When you arrange notes they will ask you quantity of notes. Because they have to arrange another packet of fake notes.
Sitting in front he is going to wrap your notes in chemical and strap a tape so that you cannot see your 500 notes in that packet and now he is going to exchange packet which he already holds undercovered..you cannot judge that packet holds your darhams or fake notes which he already holds before comming to you..
Now he will say you stay with this packet and i will go back to get by bag to decode currency notes with this packet you have..
I experienced all this from three of different parties in UAE..
Thankfull to Almighty i judge them when he asked me to put this packet in warm place and i am comming within 15mins..
Normally black youngsters are involved in this kind of fraud..