Black money scam

The black money scam, sometimes also known as the "black dollar scam" or "wash wash scam", is a scam where con artists attempt to fraudulently obtain money from a victim by persuading him or her that piles of banknote-sized paper in a trunk or a safe are actually currency notes that have been dyed to avoid detection by authorities. The victim is persuaded to pay fees and purchase chemicals to remove the dye, with the promise of a share in the proceeds.

The black money scam is a variation of what is known as advance fee fraud.

Typically the scammer will send out thousands, if not millions of e-mails to known and random e-mail addresses, hoping for a few replies. The initial message may read something like this:

I am a lawyer in Belgium and I am charged with seeking the rightful heir to certain assets which were deposited many years ago with a security company here in Brussels by a man who died a few years ago. We have made extensive searches to find any living heirs, but with minimal success. A man with your name is named in the Will and Testament as being the only beneficiary of these assets. We believe that you may be the person entitled and are writing to enquire if you have any dead relatives or friends who may have named you as a beneficiary of these assets in their will and testament. If so please let us have their names and any other information so we can check if you are indeed the beneficiary. The amount of the assets is $150,000 and one large trunk, contents unknown. Please reply immediately

Sometimes however, the scammer resorts to directly approaching the victim.

As the communications between the two parties continue, it will become necessary for certain fees and expenses to be paid, including government taxes, or death duties. In reality, there are no such taxes to be paid. However the need to pay fees or taxes is used as an excuse to make any free funds vanish, and/or to extract funds from the victim.

Eventually by various means and devices the victim will be persuaded that the trunk contains a very large amount of cash which had a legitimate, or not so legitimate, reason for all this money to be in cash. Furthermore, the money has all been stained black or another color to avoid detection by customs. A valid reason for this will be given: "The deceased traded in African artifacts and had to pay for some expensive items in cash before he died. To avoid customs problems and theft the money had to be stained black." The victim is assured that the chemical needed for washing the money is also in the trunk.

The victim may have already paid some money to pay fees and taxes, and he may now be invited to pay the shipping expenses of the trunk to his home country. Whether these are paid or not, the trunk will not be shipped and further sums will be demanded on various pretexts, such as taxes, security company fees, money transfer fees, legalization fees, export permissions, etc.

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Wikipedia