Posted by By Tunde Busari on
IT sounds strange but it is true. Nigerian fraudsters are now penetrating Vietnam, a tiny country in Asia.....
IT sounds strange but it is true. Nigerian fraudsters are now penetrating Vietnam, a tiny country in Asia. Vietnam is one of the poorest countries in the world but this has not deterred some Nigerians from taking their trade to that tiny impoverished country.
What they do over there varies from the indecent act of using chemicals to change dollars in what is now known as counterfeiting to the act of informing their victims of a non-existent business offer which they planned to bring down to the country.
Well, while many of them have succeeded in these acts, others have not been so lucky as a report recently posted on the internet revealed that many Nigerians were recently arrested trying to dupe Vietnamese of their money.
According to reports, one of the Nigerian fraudsters, who specialised in duping women after establishing relationships with them, was arrested while attempting to lure one of his victims into parting with some dollars which he claimed he intended to use to buy 'chemicals" to wash some blackened dollars.
He claimed he brought the dollars to the country as ordinary papers in order to shield the money from the eagle-eyed security officials in the country.
The other case involved a Nigerian who tried to lure a Vietnamese woman into a non-existent investment plan worth $6.5 million. The Nigerian, who initially claimed he was a Brazilian, was later found out to be a fraudster and, during interrogation, was discovered to be a Nigerian.
According to the story, the man, whose name was not revealed like the first, told his victim that about $500,000 he brought down had turned black and he needed to get some chemicals to 'wash" the money. He then requested for $40,000 from the woman which she gladly gave.
Below are the stories as reported by a Vietnamese daily, Thanh Nien. 'Vietnamese police have foiled three Nigerians in their scams duping thousands of dollars out of Vietnamese women who lent them money to ostensibly buy chemicals to restore ‘blackened US banknotes'.
A source said they had been deported from Vietnam. The police refused to reveal their names or say whether the three cases were related, but they happened with different women earlier this year by different Nigerians with the same trick.
In April, one Nigerian befriended a café owner in southern Vung Tau resort city and promised to give her a share in a restaurant he was about to open if she lent him US$20,000 to buy chemicals to restore blackened banknotes worth an astronomical US$1 billion.
He claimed he had purposefully blackened the notes to dodge customs screenings and taxation. He then did an experiment. After rubbing and cleansing in a ‘special solution', he managed to turn two blackened papers the size of US$100 banknotes into real cash.
He generously gave her the two notes. The gullible woman later lent him $7,000 before being handed a stack of supposed banknotes wrapped in thick paper. He said the money had been treated with chemicals but had to wait for eight hours in cold temperatures before taking effect.
She then put the stack in her fridge and, after eight hours, opened it only to discover they were just plain paper. Meanwhile, the ‘billionaire' had fled. A similar case occurred the following month with a woman in Ho Chi Minh City, who got to know a man claiming to be Brazilian through Internet chat.
The ‘Brazilian', who is in fact Nigerian, flew to Vietnam and told her he had inherited $6.5 million which he wanted to invest in Vietnam. He added the $500,000 he had initially transported to Vietnam had turned black and he needed $40,000 to buy chemicals.
Another woman also in Ho Chi Minh City was similarly defrauded of $30,000. A policeman told Thanh Nien the tricksters secretly slid real banknotes underneath the black papers during ‘chemical treatment' and secretly slipped the black papers out.
The ‘chemical solution' is just plain water, he added.