Would you ever believe the email in which a ‘Nigerian Prince’ promises you his estate as long as you wire him some money beforehand? No, we expect our intelligent Coconuts readership would shove the email straight into the spam folder immediately
But some people are still gullible and/or greedy enough to fall for a similar scam in Jakarta.
Oribahor Collins (45) and Bright Okosun (35), two black men of unknown nationalities who were only described by Warta Kota as “negro” (which in Bahasa Indonesia isn’t a derogatory term – it’s just a word used to describe black people), scammed another black person out of Rp 117 million.
The two suspects fooled the victim, Franciscus Rorah, by saying they were expecting to receive Rp 38 billion from a colleague. But they couldn’t withdraw the money as it was being held by United Nations representatives in Jakarta.
The suspects told Franciscus they needed a loan of Rp 1 billion to be given to the UN as collateral in order to be able to withdraw the Rp 38 billion. Franciscus was promised a cut of the larger pie once the suspects received the money.
Franciscus agreed and lent the money in installments between January and February 2015. He only grew suspicious after he had already “lent” Rp 117 million and the two suspects kept pressuring him for more money.
“The victim became suspicious so he chose to report the suspects to the police,” said Didik Sugiarto of the Jakarta Police, as quoted by Warta Kota today.
The police eventually tracked down the two suspects in Thamrin City Mall, Central Jakarta on February 17. An officer had to shoot Oribahor in his ankle as he was resisting arrest.
It wasn’t clear if Franciscus got his Rp 117 million back. But hopefully he learned a thing or two about not falling for such silly scams.
