Two citizens of Cameroon have been arrested in Moscow on suspicion of trying to pull off a classic black dollar scam. They used a topical cover story, Gaddafi’s funds, to convince their victim he could get rich quick.
The men from Africa told a deceivable Muscovite that they were in possession of several hundred thousand dollars taken from Libya’s state coffers which they had to paint black to get past customs and the airport scanners. They said the money can be easily washed with a special substance and demonstrated their “know-how” of the laundering process. The only drawback was that they needed one clean $100 bill lying between two dirty ones to catalyze the process and wash off the paint. According to them, each bill could be used only once before it lost its cleaning power, so the scammers were just looking for an investor who could borrow enough cash for them.A huge potential return on investment and greed persuaded a Muscovite to give them as much as $60,000. Soon the investor realized – perhaps after reading the news about the US being in possession of Gaddafi’s money – that he had been scammed and called police. Both Cameroonians have been arrested and are now being questioned through an interpreter, as they are reportedly pretending that they do not speak Russian.All the money was found during the police search.