Ivor Powell As police detectives struggle to contain a spate of so-called “Black Dollar” cons the Mail & Guardian has learned of a new dollar scam syndicate operating a confidence trick in Gauteng that puts a peculiarly literal spin on the notion of money laundering. The con operation is run by two men, one – an Edward Sithole – claiming to be a senior South African civil servant with contacts in both the Reserve Bank and the Department of Home Affairs. The other says he has what is possibly the dirtiest money imaginable: $16,5-million in proceeds from the sale of “blood diamonds” during the brutal military coup of Major Johnny Koroma in Sierra Leone. Calling himself George Sankoh, and claiming to be the son of Fody Sankoh, former leader of the Revolutionary United Front guerrilla movement who disappeared mysteriously three months ago, the conman is indeed in possession of boxes full of real United States
dollars to prove his claim. Only they have been further tainted by an official US stamp saying the notes have been taken out of
circulation.
No problem, the conmen tell their victims, get-rich-quick
businessmen responding to a faxed “Request of Urgent Business Proposal: Transfer of US$16.5-million” offering 20% of the money in
exchange for helping to move the money. The dollars can be cleaned, but first money has to change hands… A German businessman who was conned out of nearly R100E000 said that, after responding to the approach, he was taken by Sithole and Sankoh in July to a suburb between Johannesburg and Pretoria, where Sithole opened one of the units to reveal a locked box filled with money. However, before the conmen would open the box, the businessman had to fork out R50 000 – supposedly money owing to the security company which had been holding the money on behalf of Sankoh. Once the box was opened, piles of dollar bills were revealed and the conmen proceeded to demonstrate the technique by means of which the official “not legal tender” stamps could supposedly be removed. Though in reality this is a next-to- impossible task, the conmen, using a “special solvent”, were able to create the illusion of removing the official stamp – presumably because they demonstrated the technique on banknotes on which they had faked the official stamp using a soluble ink. Then the real sting became apparent. The only problem, Sithole and Sankoh said, was they had to import the solvent from the US – at a cost of R350E000, which the businessman would have to put up. It was around this point that the German decided to cut his losses and pull out of the deal. “I was getting suspicious anyway,” he told the M&G. “I noticed that Sankoh ducked every time he went near a bank … especially Nedbank.” But the businessman was not able to retrieve the money he had already paid to the two conmen, and said threats of harm were
issued if he opened his mouth. The threats were recorded on tape. Attempts to contact the conmen on their cellphones this week proved unsuccessful. Sankoh’s was on voicemail, and Sithole, after asking who was “looking for Edward Sithole”, said it was a wrong number after being told of the purpose of the call.
A source in the US government service confirmed that the dollars in question had indeed gone missing after being taken out of a Sierra Leonean bank at the time of the Koroma coup and “overprinted with Sierra Leone”. “They were scheduled to be sent back to the US and destroyed there,” the source said, adding that in late 1999 some of the dirty dollars had indeed ended up in South Africa as well as Angola.