Scammers caught in the act of literally “washing money”

Two French-speaking Cameroonian nationals appeared before Magistrate Natasha Galea Sciberras earlier today, accused of attempted fraud after being caught red handed making so-called “black money”.

Police acting on a tip-off raided a hotel room and caught Marcelin Kamwa, 37 and Jean Jacques Tientcheu, 40 in the act of dying papers with iodine.

Prosecuting Inspector Jonathan Ferris explained to the MaltaToday that the crime is a simple one – one large denomination banknote is dyed black with iodine and put in a batch of plain banknote-sized papers, which were similarly dyed.

The fraudsters convince victims to buy large amounts of these notes for less than their stated value on the pretext that due to laws in their homeland they “cannot export money”.

The criminals then wash the black banknote in vitamin C solution and the iodine dissolves, revealing the banknote. The rest of the “banknotes” are plain papers.

The so called “Black Money Scam” and similar “White Money Scam” is widespread and generally involves nationals from Cameroon, Nigeria and Ivory Coast.

The accused did not request bail and were remanded in custody.

Lawyer Anthony Stellini assisted the accused as legal aid .