Abu Dhabi Magic

Amusing story from the weekend:

Abu Dhabi // Two men have been arrested after offering to double an undercover agent’s money using a magic powder, the Ministry of Interior said yesterday. The suspects, Africans identified as SLD, 32, and ASN, 33, are accused of claiming that a “magic blend” sprinkled over banknotes contained in a bag would double the amount. Laboratory tests showed that the powder consisted of flour and washing powder. “It is all absurd,” said Col Maktoum al Sharifi, the director of the Criminal and Investigative Directorate (CID). “They would put some of the powder on the notes they want to double. They would then put the notes in a bag and ask their victims not to open the bag until the blend takes effect.” The usual method was to give the victims, most of whom came from the northern emirates, an initial “demonstration” of the powder’s inflationary properties before being asking them to hand over a larger number of notes. However, that money would be switched with fake notes that would then be covered with the powder and closed in the bag.


Just goes to show that all that glitters is not gold, even in Abu Dhabi!

Two held over ‘magic powder’ cash fraud

Continuing Medical Education in UAE – Fraud Alert

Please be aware and make your employees aware of dramatic increase in illegal CME Accreditations flipping throughout the Arabic Gulf countries. The scam involves hospitals and medical establishments posing as “International CME Accreditations” – offering purchase Seal of Accreditation from USA. The scam is most prevalent in new hospitals and high-end medical establishments, particularly in UAE and Saudi Arabia by American Academy of Continuing Medical Education (AACME).

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UAE Targeted by Fraudsters

How it goes: you get a call from a ‘No Number’ and most probably it’s a sweet female who’s trying hard to fake an American accent. Then she hits you with the wonderful news:

Congratulations, sir! You’ve won the lottery!

The prize is more than 50 thousand dollars! WHAT? But I never bought a lottery ticket! They know your full name, so forget about the fact that you never bought a ticket. You’re the winner, MAN!

Now to complete the transfer of the money, all you need to do is give them your credit card number, the expiry date and the 3 digits in the back. Wow that’s easy, but what do they need my credit card for? To transfer the money, stupid! Oh ok, in that case, there you go.

Now I don’t exactly know what they do with your credit card after that, but I’m sure it’s not something sweet.

It was discussed last week on the Emirati Dr. Phil show (Bu Rashid from Radio Ajman) where people called to complain that they’ve been getting international calls from people trying to con them into giving them their credit card numbers, one of them did but called his bank who immediately cancelled any incoming/outgoing transaction.

You might be smart enough to know that it's all a crock of poop, but somebody doesn’t, so please help by spreading the word.

The longer version of this can be found on my blog.