RIYADH: Dubai police have arrested an unreported number of African men who created an elaborate scheme to steal SR284,000 from a Saudi businessman, the daily Al-Riyadh reported on Wednesday.
In a variation of the infamous “419 scam,” the men reportedly contacted the businessman by e-mail and then phone saying there was $9.5 million waiting for him in escrow in a bank in the UAE, but that he must go to Dubai to complete the transactions to claim the funds.
After the businessman arrived in Dubai, the gang gave him money to spend in Dubai as they finalized the process of transferring the funds. The con artists then started demanding money for processing and transaction fees, first SR800 and then SR5,000. Somehow this ended up with the Saudi businessman paying out the hundreds of thousands of riyals.
The scammers then asked the man to transfer SR500,000 to a bank in the Bahamas as a tax on the funds. At this point, the businessman became suspicious and reported the men to local authorities and returned to Saudi Arabia.
