JEDDAH, 15 December 2004 — A Nigerian was shot dead on Jeddah’s Hera Street recently and security sources believe that the man could be the first victim of an infight between members of a gang involved in fraudulent SAWA card share business.
A Saudi man later confessed to security agents that he shot dead the Nigerian in self-defense when the gang members beat him up and tried to take away SR1 million which he had brought for purchasing SAWA cards.
He said the Nigerians had promised him 12,500 cards for SR1 million at the rate of SR80 per card. “When I approached them with the money, they started beating me until I fell down. I managed to take the gun which was with me and fired at them,” Okaz Arabic daily quoted the Saudi as saying.
According to the paper, four persons — a Sudanese, a Nigerian, a Tunisian and an Indian — had played the role of intermediaries as they convinced the Saudi to purchase the cards from the Nigerian gang. Police arrested all members of the gang on Saturday.
Speaking about the shooting incident, a Turkish witness, who refused to give his name, said he had heard sounds of gunfire from a four-story building, believed to be the hideout of the gang.
“I heard the sound of women crying and a number of black men rushing out of the building after the shootout,” the witness said.
A Palestinian youth, another witness, said he had seen more than 10 people including Saudis and Nigerians running away from the building.
“I saw one Saudi man falling to the ground during the rush... A large number of SR500 notes fell from his hands... Three people quickly collected the money and they all escaped in a Hilux pickup. Everybody has seen the Nigerian’s body lying at the gate of the building,” the Palestinian witness said.
The report on the SAWA card gang came after a five-member panel investigating the SR1 billion SAWA card share scam found two of its leading players guilty of embezzlement and decided to transfer them to Breman Jail.
Abdul Aziz Al-Johani, a former security guard at Saudi Telecom Company and alleged mastermind behind the scam, and his main partner Muhammad Al-Shamrani had been under investigation for the past one month.
Al-Shamrani acknowledged before the panel set up by Makkah Governor Prince Abdul Majeed that he had issued SR36 million in dud checks to the heads of some investment groups, which collected money from individuals as SAWA card shares.
Al-Shamrani has been given 45 days to pay SR24 million to the shareholders. However, some group leaders refused to give him any grace period to pay amounts owed to them.
