Man duped twice... duo swindles Dh1m

When two African men approached a Gulf businessman in Dubai and told him they can multiply his money, he instantly handed them Dh700,000. Nearly six months after his money and the gang vanished, he had the chance to have them arrested when he spotted them back in town. Instead, he accepted their explanation and handed them Dh300,000 more.

Police described the two African men as swindlers and impostors. But they also refused to consider the businessman as a victim, saying he just wanted quick money and his greediness only tempted the thieves.

The two had told the unidentified businessman that they can multiply his Dh700,000 to $7 million, which instantly made his mouth water and prompted him to accompany them to their hotel room.

At their room, which they had turned into a money-minting laboratory, they expertly made a demonstration for him involving turning a few hundred notes into a large quantity. They then asked the businessman to go to any bank and check the new notes to ensure they are not fake.

Acting as a clever man who can not be easily duped, he rushed to a nearby bank, where he was told the notes are not fake. But he quickly realised later that what is fake is the intention of two Africans who he discovered had fled.

Feeling embarrassed by being duped so easily, the man decided not to report the case to the police and accepted the fact that his money had gone.

In November, nearly six months after he first met the two Africans, the businessman coincidentally spotted them back in town. He rushed forward, grabbed the two and threatened to call the police. But he started to calm down when they tried to explain to him that their absence was to buy the substance used in multiplying his money and that they simply ran out of the substance in the first experiment.

They told him that if he can give them Dh300,000 to buy that substance, then they will be able to hand him the promised $7million.

He again believed them but wanted to act as a clever man again when he insisted that they come to his flat to carry out the experiment.

At the apartment in the second floor, he locked up one man while the second said he would be coming later. It was ages before the businessman decided to open the door to check that the man was still there.

After entering the room, he was shocked to find that the African man had opened the window and jumped out. It was only then that the businessman realised that he had been duped twice by the two same men and that it was time to report them to the police in the hope he will get his money back.

“We found them at the airport just before their departure…one was limping as he apparently had hurt his leg when he jumped from that flat,” said Lt Colonel Ahmed Al Merri, criminal investigation chief at the Dubai Police. “The businessman recovered all his money…he decided to report them to the police after realising he had been a victim of experienced impostors  twice.”

Newspapers quoted Brigadier Khalil Al Mansouri, director of the department of criminal investigation and detectives in Dubai, as saying that by falling victim for the second time to the same persons, the businessman did not learn from the saying by Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him) that “a believer is not bitten twice in the same hole.”

“He simply rushed to hand his money to people he does not know….he again did the same thing in the hope he will grab this fake treasure promised by these two impostors,,,….as they say, ‘behind every impostor, there is a greedy one.”

Manager jailed for stealing safe from shop

Crazy World: Lesson 1, learner driver kills girl

Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.