The Jakarta Globe, January 21, 2014.
Jakarta Police have arrested nine people for a scam that appears to have tricked a Filipino nun working in Flores to part with tens of thousands of dollars to purchase loot from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq over the internet.
Sister Enhambre Maribel Guso told police she had wanted to use the resale profit to support an orphanage.
“They pretended that they had spoils of wars in Iraq from the era of Saddam Hussein,” Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Rikwanto said in Jakarta on Monday.
Four Indonesian nationals and five Nigerian passport holders were detained on Sunday at the Mall of Indonesia in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta.
The alleged fraudsters claimed to have been in possession of golden watches, gold bars and cell phones supposedly worth Rp 7.5 billion ($625,000). They had sent out an email blast, hoping someone would respond.
Cmr. Jerry Raymond, one of the police detectives handling the case, said Sr. Guso had met with the fraudsters in Jakarta. At the meeting they had told her the items were stuck in customs, which was probably the only thing in this deal that carried an air of plausibility.
“They asked the victim to prepare Rp 200 million to retrieve the items [from the customs office],” Jerry said.
The fraudsters then said there was a problem with an embassy — it was not clear on Tuesday which embassy — and that she would need to pay another installment.
This pattern continued until Sr. Guso made a complaint to the police, by which time she had lost Rp 820 million ($67,000).
Nine people have been arrested and will be charged with fraud. They face maximum sentences of five years if convicted.
(1.:Now where would the good little sister get all that money to "buy" all this loot? Specially if the stuff was x the Saddam Hussein era! Gold bars and the like would not just be lying around on the street corners in Iraq.
2.: Re-selling loot, even for a worthy cause, still goes against "Thou shallt not steal" or is that allright now) siK
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di 21 jan 2014 - 20:19