Although it doesn’t include a prince, a Nigerian man is suspected of scamming a very naive Indonesian businesswoman out of Rp 800 million using a ploy that will sound familiar to many of you.
It all began when the suspect, whose identity remains unknown, created a fake Facebook profile showing him to be a soldier of the United Nations. The suspect sent a private message to the victim, whose identity wasn’t disclosed, saying that he wants to send her US Dollars marked with the UN logo.
“Before the suspect was to send the money, the victim was asked to wire funds that were supposedly going to be used to wipe the UN logo off of the US Dollar notes,” said Jakarta Police Public Crimes Director Krishna Murti, as quoted by Okezone yesterday.
The suspect and the victim actually met up in a hotel in South Jakarta. The suspect brought along the marked dollar bills as proof that he wasn’t lying.
Unfortunately, the victim fell for it and wired Rp 800 million over to the suspect. The suspect said he’d send someone to deliver the money to her once the bills were clean.
Unsurprisingly, the ‘Nigerian UN officer’ never held up his side of the bargain.
The police are investigating the matter but the scammer hasn’t been located yet. So if you receive any messages from a United Nations officer on Facebook, it’s best to ignore it.
