Police warn residents about dollar syndicate
JAKARTA (JP): An accountant reported to the police on Wednesday that he had been duped into handing over more than US$95,000 to a foreigner, who had previously succeeded in apparently doubling up $500 handed over by the accountant to $1,000.
The victim, who requested anonymity, told The Jakarta Post at Jakarta Police headquarters that he was introduced to the foreigner, Kino (not his real name), by a friend. On Monday, Kino took him to his hotel room in Central Jakarta, where he handed over $500.
"Right in front of my very eyes, he placed each of the real banknotes on top of his special notes which were still blank ... he placed one on top of the other," the 36-year-old accountant said.
The blank notes, the accountant said, were totally white in color but if they were run through a scanner, a U.S. dollar banknote would be clearly visible.
"He used a special black dye ... it looked like your common Betadine antiseptic but smelled strongly of ammonia, and poured it over all the notes ... my real notes and his blank ones. When it dried, he dipped cotton into another liquid and rubbed off the dye from the real and the fake notes."
"This con artist gave me all of the notes and told me to get them changed into rupiah at any money changer."
The accountant said that he went to a reputable money changer, and was amazed when the teller, after scanning the dollars, said that they were "all good" and paid him their rupiah equivalent.
On Tuesday, the accountant booked a room under his own name at the hotel Kino was staying in. He invited Kino to his room and handed over $95,000 to be doubled up by the foreigner.
"But this time, Kino said he would carry out the process in the hotel room's bathroom, as it involved a lot of money and the ammonia smell would be a real bother," the accountant explained.
He said Kino told him that by Wednesday morning everything would be ready, but by Wednesday morning he was gone.
Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Anton Bachrul Alam warned local residents against such crimes perpetrated by foreigners against city residents eager to get rich quick.
He said that the foreigners, most of whom reportedly come from African countries, were taking advantage of the gullibility of city residents and fluctuations in the value of the rupiah against the U.S. dollar to set up dollar-swindling syndicates here.
Detectives explained that what the crooks actually did was to place authentic, large denomination dollar bills at certain intervals in wads of dollar-sized pieces of paper that were dyed black using a chemical substance.
When trying to hook their victim, the con men normally removed the original dollars from the pile and rubbed the dye off to convince their marks of the authenticity of the money.
Victims of similar scams, mostly currency traders and people in the medium- and upper-income brackets, have come forward in Jakarta, Surabaya and Medan. (ylt)