Details have merged of how unscrupulous individuals con Kenyans into fake gold and money business.
After scouting for gullible targets, the con artists embark on a rigorous operation that earns them millions of shillings.
“They get international investors in the name of starting a project in areas such as Turkana. The moment an investor lands on a tourist visa, they are invited for a meeting at a bank, where one of the cons has an account and safe deposit box,” a source told The Standard.
The box contains gold and currency that has allegedly been paid by other “investors” in the deal.
The target is informed they have to purchase a special chemical to “erase a UN stamp on the dollar notes.”
The chemical identified as SSD chemical is a special type of homogeneous mixture composed of two or more substances, which is mostly used for an extraction process.
A litre of the chemical costs Ksh1.5 million but the culprits hike the price to Ksh2.5 million.
Once the victim produces the amount, the cons buy a three-kilo fire extinguisher cylinder, which ordinarily costs Ksh3,000.
Investigations show that once they buy the fire extinguisher, they then erase its inscriptions and paste stickers to present them as SSD solution chemical.
A fake United Nations ‘technician’ is then sent to inspect the consignment and sample whether the currency notes are intact.
Unknown to the prey, the technician arrives with genuine dollar notes and then pretends that they came from the consignment.
In the illegal gold trade, a target is directed to pay insurance money to procure a consignment of the same only for it to turn out to be gold-coated, cheap Chinese padlocks that have been crashed.
