Monday, August 3, 2009

Not This Trick Again!

We've recently been discussing spells using magical powders, but this takes it to a whole new level - that is, it would if it really worked.

Remember these guys? The confidence artists in Dubai who were arrested for claiming to be able to double any amount of money using magick? In the United Arab Emirates, this appears to be the scam that will not die, this time in the city of Abu Dhabi.

Two men were arrested in Abu Dhabi for swindling a large number of people with claims they possessed "magic powder" that doubled bank notes, a local newspaper reported on Sunday.

The men would show their victims what they said were the supernatural powers of the powder, which if sprinkled over a banknotes in a bag, would double the amount, The National cited the interior ministry as saying.

I'll say it one more time - if you really have magick powder that does this, why not just start with a low denomination bank note and double it every day? You'll wind up with billions at your disposal without the need to con anyone out of anything. I suppose the explanation could be that the money could only be doubled once, but still, the very existence of the con makes its premise dubious.

After the victims handed over a large number of notes, the "magicians" would swap the money with fake notes covered with the powder, which lab tests showed consisted of flour and washing powder, the paper reported.

"A massive number of people, not some, lost to them," said Colonel Maktoum al-Sharifi, the director of the Criminal and Investigative Directorate, without saying how much money the men had swindled.

The two men were caught in an Abu Dhabi hotel after they played the trick on an undercover policeman posing as a potential customer, the paper added.

Like spam e-mails, I suppose people are going to keep this up as long as there's money to be made and individuals who can be taken in by the con. I will say that it's a pretty ingenious method to get counterfeit currency into circulation - I'm guessing that nobody will want to admit they got the fake notes from a sorcerer if they're caught passing them.

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5 comments:

Sator said...

Well I know a Lady thats runs a lot of exchange money offices and made a lot of money. So; she is a Bussines woman, not the kind of people that you can foolish so easy ; anyway a couple of gypsis convinced her that she can increse her money trough a ritual; and asked her to bring jewels, gold, money, whatever she had. So she laid above those things in the ritual and get "the power of gold".
What happened is that the gypsis gave her a drug and take the money and ran. Nigerians scams still works because
People is so greedy.

yuzuru said...

There is a saying that you can´t fool an honest man... I don´t think this is true, but you can see in this tipic nigerians scam that they are always based on the scammed trying to scam the scammers!

One of the oldest tricks in the book really. Make people believe they are fooling you, and they will lower their reasoning habilities.

Sator said...

A version of the nigerian scam is for the thief to claim to have contacts to facilitate legitimate business loans; the victim here is not persuaded that he is doing anything illegal. This is happening in México; if you have land by the beach they contact you from UK -it seems its full of Nigerians-, telling you thay want ot invest in condos. So they getting smarter, and yes; you can fool an honest man.

Morgan Drake Eckstein said...

And I felt guilty writing an article about money spells.

Scott Stenwick said...

And I felt guilty writing an article about money spells.

Hey, there's nothing wrong with money spells as long as they don't enrich you at the expense of an unsuspecting mark.