Black Money Scam Used to Swindle Koreans

These African scammers sure are creative and their victims seem to get dumber and dumber:

African con artists have found another way to swindle Koreans, this time by selling pieces of regular paper that they claim are actually U.S. banknotes.

In this so-called “black money” or “money wash” scam, unsuspecting victims are persuaded that stacks of banknote-sized black pieces of paper are $100 bills that have been dyed black and smuggled from a U.S. relief fund for Africa. Wide-eyed victims then pay large amounts of money for heaps of black paper and a dye-remover machine or liquid, believing they have purchased U.S. dollars far below the exchange rate.

Last month, a 45-year-old Korean businessman was strolling through Itaewon, a popular neighborhood in Seoul known for its many cafes, bars and foreign restaurants, when a Liberian approached him and said he had a lucrative business proposal. After leading the Korean to a nearby parked van, he fed a piece of black paper into a small machine, and soon the device spit out a crisp $100 bill. The businessman took the bill to a bank, where he was told that it was genuine.

He paid 540 million won ($463,100) for the machine and a sizable portion of black paper. He borrowed the money from associates.

The machine was a simple paper dispenser previously loaded for the demonstration with a genuine banknote.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link, but it seems the victim is just as bad as the con artist if they though they were receiving stolen African aid money.