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We have seen examples of conmen using 'magic' before - getting people to hand over their money, goods, etc. without realising:
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Voodoo conmen cash in on gullible in booming Dubai
(Reuters)
7 November 2004
DUBAI - Armed with buckets and fake bills, mystic-minded conmen are converging on the booming Gulf city of Dubai intent on duping the gullible out of their cash.
Confidence crimes involving hokey voodoo magic and money multiplying schemes are on the rise in Dubai, which is seen by many as a land of opportunity, not least by the fraudsters.
Police say they dealt with 28 such crimes so far this year, up from 18 in 2003. The police also recently set up a hotline for the public to call to help catch the crooks involved.
The numbers might be small compared to global figures, but police say more and more of the city’s one million people are falling prey to the fraudsters.
One of the most notorious cases took place in Dubai in 1998, when an impressionable branch manager of a leading bank stole over 0 million from his employer, which he passed on to a charismatic African businessman.
When police asked why he did it, the manager said he had fallen under a black magic spell and was compelled against his will to pilfer the money.
This global problem persists in Dubai today, where stories of people being conned feature regularly in the local press.
“The people who fall for these things have big dreams of making fast money,” said Abdul Hamid Ahmed, editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper Gulf News.
“There’s a lot of money here at the moment. This attracts criminals who are able to take advantage of the gullible.”
Sting operations
It is not difficult to see why these grifters are attracted to this affluent city, which is growing at a rapid rate. Millions have flocked to work in Dubai from across the globe, all hoping to grab their piece of the prosperity pie.
“These crimes are a real headache,” said Captain Wesam bin Darrai, head of a Dubai police strike team that carries out sting operations to catch the fraudsters.
“People fall for them through simple greed and stupidity. The criminals come mostly from Africa and target Arabs who they see as having lots of money,” he said.
The scams often involve bizarre voodoo rituals where potions are concocted and animals are sacrificed.
Darrai recalls how he once visited a colourfully dressed African magician who promised to conjure up bundles of cash using a bucket, a bed sheet and some chanting.
“The man stripped down to his underwear and threw the blanket over himself and the bucket. He then began chanting to summon a spirit that would steal money from the bank accounts of the undeserving rich,” the captain said while chuckling.
The mystic then emerged from beneath the blanket to reveal the Robin Hood-like spirit had left a bill in the bucket.
“He said that if I wanted more I would have to give him 10,000 UAE dirhams (,723) to buy ten black cows that would be sacrificed to appease the spirit,” Darrai said.
He returned later that day with the money and arrested the witch doctor as soon as he took hold of the cash.
Darrai believes the crimes first appeared in Dubai in the early 1990s, about the same time the city embarked on a rapid expansion plan which has seen it quickly become the trade and tourism hub of the oil-rich Gulf region.
Fellow economic crime officer Fahad al Bannai says one of the most popular get-rich-quick schemes involves pieces of black carbon paper the shape and size of dollar bills.
“The criminals say these are in fact dollars covered in a special black ink devised by the CIA,” he said.
“The victims are asked to hand over money to buy the special chemical needed to wash off the ink. A Saudi businessman was conned out of one million dollars this way.”
E-mail swindles
Confidence crooks have also started to target Dubai through the Internet.
A government official told Reuters he had spent months e-mailing someone claiming to have access to million dollars in a major Dubai bank. “The sender said I would be a given a cut of the money if I sent him my bank account details,” he said.
He eventually managed to wheedle out information about the scam, which he gave to the bank.
“These sorts of e-mails are nothing new,” he said. “But the fact that one of them specifically mentioned Dubai means it has become so well known among these criminals.”
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