NBI nabs two Africans for ‘fake dollar scam’

National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) operatives have arrested two African nationals in Makati City over a scam involving counterfeit US dollars.

NBI Director Dante Gierran on Thursday said suspects Leon Chambers and Victor Benjamin Miendje, citizens of South African country Cameroon, were allegedly duping foreign nationals in the country into thinking that they were in possession of legitimate US dollars.

Gierran said Chambers and Miendje told their victims that they had been using dye on the currencies to avoid detection by authorities.

The suspects enticed their victims to cough up money, claiming that they would purchase chemicals to wash the dye off, and that the victims would get their share of the money, the NBI chief said.

However, Gierran said that an entrapment operation on Monday, January 22, revealed Chambers and Miendje were merely carrying counterfeit notes, and the money scammed from the victims were not intended to purchase the purported chemicals.

The scheme, dubbed as the “Black Dollar Scam,” was uncovered after Jordanian national Thamer Alradaideh filed a complaint with the NBI last December 27, the NBI chief said.

Alradaideh told the NBI that he had already given the suspects a total of P1.2 million, thinking that he would get a share of the banknotes, according to Gierran.

Chambers and Miendje have been charged for illegal possession and use of false treasury or banknotes before the Department of Justice, the NBI chief said.

The suspects’ co-conspirators, who were identified as Martin Ndang, Ngwa Dako Brown, Mary Joseph and alias Clinto, were also included in the criminal complaint.