Beware! Con artists are out in numbers

Jun 27, 2010 Features / Columnists, My Column

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By Adam Harris

Someone once said that if something is too good to be true then it is too good to be true. If a man comes up to you and says that he can take your $100,000 and double it within two days then rest assured that he cannot. That is an offer that is too good to be true.
I remember the days when I was working at Bartica. There was a fellow named Atkins who would go to some businessmen with an offer to double their money before their very eyes. This was called ‘switch and burn’. The con artist would take the money, wrap it in some cloth and proceed to put it in a pot. And this is being done while the businessman is sitting right there.
After a while the con artist opens the pot and when he opens the cloth there is nothing but a burnt heap. He proceeds to tell the businessman that his money was burnt, that the thing did not work. But in fact, it had already been cleverly switched in the process.
I remember one businessman running to the police station to report that he had been fleeced. The detective sergeant at the time was a young fellow named Vernon Cumberbatch who proceeded to arrest Atkins. I watched as Cummo dragged the story from him. In the end Atkins got nine months as a guest of the state but he had earlier done the same to some other businessmen who opted to remain quiet.
If I were the businessman I would have wondered right off the top of my head “Why doesn’t this man take his own money and double or even triple it and get very rich?”
It is the same with some people who advertise. These are smart. They use the newspapers to peddle their confidence trick. For example, there was this young female individual who posted advertisements about vehicles for sale.
People brought their money in hope and were left in despair. The courts could only penalize the woman, but so much money was collected that people were bound to lose their deposits.
Then there were those who turned up with a can in their hand because their vehicle had run out of gasoline around the corner. One such person came to my home. I had already been alerted so I asked him for the number of the vehicle owner. He said that he was the owner. All went well until I offered to take him to his vehicle with a view to getting him to the gas station.
Forget those who come with petty schemes like money to get medication for a child or money to go home, or even those who pretend to be deaf and dumb. If one is deaf and dumb one can still work, so I do not fall for that scam.
But there are those that appear in the press. There are jobs in Canada. Contact a certain name at a certain phone number. Or study in Canada; pay so much; visa provided. The number of people who fall for this is amazing. It is as if everyone wants to go overseas just to study.
Some of the architects of this scam are before the courts but there are others who try their luck. People actually believe the scam because it is published in a newspaper. This simply means that the newspaper is desperate for money so it would take anything.
I firmly believe that newspapers should know when a scam is about to be perpetrated. Take the case of the ‘pandits’ from India. They posted advertisements proclaiming that they could deal with anything that affects a human being.
Which editor would advertise that someone has spirits that could be removed by the pandits? But they place the advertisements. One enterprising reporter decided to follow the advertisement. He blew the con and the pandits, to a man, ran out of Guyana to regroup elsewhere.
This pandit told the man that he had a sexual problem and that he did not have any children. The man had three.
There was the ex-prisoner whom they called Jubal. He had a scheme for young women. He would tell them that they had something in their belly. Everyone does. The woman is then told to walk with a piece of jewellery and meet Jubal by a stream.
The result is that Jubal enjoyed the best of everything. He got jewellery and he got sex in exchange for a bottle of coloured water.
There is a scam on the Internet. E-mail comes from a known person who happens to be stranded in a foreign country and wants US$1,500. In one case the friend was right here in Guyana. Who could fall for that when the friend would first call his relatives? And who leaves this country without a return ticket?
But it is the advertisement seeking young women for domestic work in a foreign country that gets me. That advertisement proclaims that for a fee this person would get a visa to work as a nanny. One girl called the number and was asked whether she was dark or light complexioned; whether she was sexy.
She answered yes and was invited. She walked with a male colleague who remained in the car. Suffice it to say that the man got a beating because he tried to get the woman in bed as part of the offer to get this trip.
Beware. There are many scams and the media houses should avoid helping to perpetrate them. A business place is offering things for sale. There is a no-return clause and the price is phenomenally cheap. Avoid it. If it is too good to be true then it is not true.

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