VietNamNet Bridge - According to an official of the Ministry of Public Security, the so-called "black dollar" trap, also known as the "dollar witch" appeared for the first time in Hanoi in 1998.

However, this trick is most strongly developed in the southern region, especially in Ho Chi Minh City. Recently, this trick has returned. The scammers are often foreigners and the victims are the rich Vietnamese.

The game to turn white paper into US dollars

In 1998, a fraud of "dollar witches" in HCM City made many people shocked. The victim was a Chinese businessman, who lost $100,000.

Since then, "dollar witches" have still quietly conducted fraudulent activities in Vietnam. Although the authorities have warned people about this type of scam, but because of greed and credulity, many people have become victims of these "dollars witches."

The scam of the "dollar witches" was widely known in 2004, when Ho Chi Minh City People's Court sentenced two Cameroon men to 7 and 6 years in prison for "making fraud to appropriate property."

Tala and Simo entered Vietnam in mid-2003. In HCM City, they got acquainted with Nguyen Hoang Long, an overseas Vietnamese and invited him to join their trick of “turn white paper into dollars."

To demonstrate, the two foreign men performed by taking a US banknote placed between two sheets of white paper (they called it the "negative" banknote of the World Bank that was not released yet) and embedded the papers with chemicals to turn them into three banknotes. They solicited Long to contribute $30,000 to do this business. They fraudulently took $30,000 of Long. The victim reported to the police to arrest the two foreign men.

At the court, they confessed that they used three real banknotes in the performance. Besides the "negative" banknote, they covered the two others with white paint to turn them into two pieces of white paper. When the paper sheets are soaked in water, white paint will be washed away and the two paper sheets will become two banknotes.

The witch game from "black dollars"

According to the Interpol Vietnam Office, the "black dollar witches" include two types: The first is the professional scammers, international fraudulent gangs entering Vietnam. These gangs have operated in many countries in the world, including Vietnam. The second is amateur scammers. They may be footballers who come to Vietnam to seek opportunities but they cannot find a job. After a period of time staying in Vietnam, they spend all the money and start doing everything to make money, including the "dollar witch."

In 2003, the Hanoi police arrested Anthony Stanlex (born 1968, Jamaica nationality) and Chambo Charles (born 1975, Mozambican nationality) while they were using trick to turn a black sheet of paper into a $20 banknote to cheat a Vietnamese who worked for an international organization.

Searching their rooms, the police seized a guide on how to turn a black piece of paper into a banknote and some bottles of chemicals. They confessed to be football players who came to Vietnam to find a job and they then were expelled from Vietnam.

A police officer said that the target of a "dollar witch" are usually businessmen, the rich and the majority are women. They usually tell the victims that they need money to buy chemical to wash "black dollars." Many people are still trapped because they have many ways of "seduction."

In the case of Ms. NTC in HCM City, scammers e-mailed C to inform her that she received a big inheritance. The scammer introduced himself as the "boss" at a big bank in Africa, who was managing an account of $7.3 million dollars of an American millionaire who died in a traffic accident death in Africa, but did not have heirs.

If C agreed to participate in and complete the procedure for inheritance, she will receive one third of the money. To win C’s trust, the scammer demonstrated the trick to wash five black dollars and asked C to give money to buy chemicals to wash the amount of $7.3 million. In October 2012, C gave this scammer $40,000. After receiving a large amount of money, the swindlers ran away.

In the latest case is June in Khanh Hoa province, Karbar Patrick, 39, South African nationality and Golokeh Sam Bass, 37, Liberian nationality used the same trick to swindle two women in Khanh Hoa. They told the women that they were holding a $1 million aid grant by the U.S. government to African countries, which were disguised by applying a black chemical.

Earlier, in February 2013, a 40-year-old woman in Binh Thanh District, HCM City was swindled and lost $67,000 dollars to a group of foreign scammers. They told the woman that they wanted to invest tens of millions of dollars in doing business in Vietnam. They wanted to cooperate with her. The victim gave them real money to exchange for black dollars.

What is the trick?

In the U.S. this trick is called "Black money scam." Many people believe that this activity is based on "red mercury" frauds that appeared a long time ago in the West African country.

Over the years, many scammers have been arrested in the United States, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam ... Most of them are African. All the scammers need is just a suitcase with or a bag full of bundles of black paper pieces in the same size with the $100 banknote and a mask, rubber gloves and a vase of the "magic" solution which looks like a bottle of perfume.

Scammers will send thousands, or even millions of e-mails, hoping to have some answers. The initial message is often: "I am a lawyer in Belgium. I am responsible for seeking the legitimate heir to a fortune that was deposited in Brussels many years ago by a man who died a few years ago. We were trying to find the legitimate heirs but so far we have not succeeded. The heir is named Will and Testament. We believe that you may be the person to inherit the property. Please tell us your name, age and other information to consider whether you are actually inherited or not? The amount of assets of $150,000 have been dyed black. Please reply for more details."

Victims of this type of fraud are quite diverse, from businessmen working overseas to those who have assets for sales and the civilian... But the majority of victims do not report the incidents for several reasons. First, they may feel deeply ashamed. Dr. Tim Sloan, a cardiac surgeon in California, said that a fraud claiming to a Nigerian diplomat named Davidson used special chemicals to "turn" a sheet of black paper into a $100 banknote. Sloan eventually lost all the savings worth $3.8 million before realizing that the suitcase was full of black paper. "I was a fool," Dr. Sloan told ABC News.

ANTD