A Garoua businessman, d’Alhadji Ahmadou Malam has lost 91 million FCFA to fey men; reports the French language bi-weekly newspaper, l’oeil du Sahel.

According to the newspaper, the businessman is currently in court with the individuals who duped him.

The shady deal all started in August 2013 when Ahmadou Malam received a call from an unknown individual who claimed to be a businessman from Chad living in Kousseri. He told Malam that his son, Abdallah wants to learn the truck transport trade.

The supposed Chadian whose name we got as Abdoulaye promised that he will buy an 18-wheeled 800 million FCFA truck for the service Malam will render him by training his son.

Malam later received another call, this time from the supposed son of the Chadian businessman, who claimed he was on his way to Garoua with 800 million FCFA on him. He told Malam that he was travelling with his father’s friend.

A few hours later he called Malam again, claiming that the truck in which he was travelling has been blocked in Maroua by customs officers and that he would not want to open the briefcase containing the said 800 million francs in front of too many people.

Abdallah convinced the Cameroonian businessman to send him 850,000 FCFA to pay off the customs officers to let him, the truck and 800 million enter Cameroon. A certain lady had also called with a Chadian number claiming that she was Abdallah’s mother.

Malam received Abdallah, and without verifying the content of the briefcase, he agreed to take him to Ngaoundere. Malam once again received another call from the latter’s mother who claimed to know the director of the Garoua branch of the BEAC bank. They were received in Ngaoundere by the supposed BEAC director. He was being driven by a chauffeur in a big car.

The supposed director accepted to keep the money but requested that a supplementary 90 million be paid to open an account. Malam paid without a second thought, left the young Abdallah in a hotel on his bill, and travelled to Mecca on pilgrimage.

When he returned from the pilgrimage, he realised that he had been duped by 419ners. This was when he received a call from a masked number, telling him that he had been tricked.

He immediately alerted the police who opened an investigation. The investigation, according to L’oeil du Sahel, revealed that the supposed Chadian businessman’s real name is Mohamadou Bachirou while his fake son Abdallah goes by several names, including, Harouna Gourda and Henri Francois. The fake BEAC director was identified as a Toupouri named, Dambe Roger.

The fake director was arrested a few weeks later in another case of robbery and complicity. The state counsel in Garoua recommended a maximum sentence of 10-year imprisonment for Dambe Roger and a refund of 91 million FCFA plus 61 million FCFA for damages.