http://www.boston.com/Boston/metrodesk/2011/11/secret-service-warns-public-about-black-money-scam/peYBTt3JpALK2ud2oGi0aP/index.html

Secret Service warns public about ‘black money’ scam

Federal officials are issuing a warning today about a “black money’’ scam in New England.

A Fall River man thought he was going to make a lot of money simply by handing over $100,000 cash to his new friends so the bills could, by a mysterious chemical process, literally launder $100 bills that were stained black by dye when they were smuggled into the country.

To make it work, the Fall River man was told, his cash had to rest on top of the blackened bucks. Then a secret chemical would be poured onto the money. After letting the chemical reaction work for five hours, his new friends told the Fall River man, he would end up with $300,000 in cash.

But according to documents filed in US District Court in Rhode Island, when the Fall River businessman opened the aluminum foil packages, he made a costly discovery.

“He opened one aluminum foil package and realized that the stack was entirely black construction paper,’’ Secret Service Agent Jon H. Ringel wrote in an affidavit. The man realized that one of his new friends “had switched his money sometime in the black money cleaning process.’’

According to federal officials, the Fall River man is a victim of a scam now being used by con artists in New England, including Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

At a news conference in Providence today, Thomas M. Powers, the head of the US Secret Service in Rhode Island, will display some of the “black money” used to fool the Fall River man – whose name was not released – just last month in a Providence hotel room.

Following an investigation where an undercover Secret Service agent was told he could double his money if he helped clean the “black money,’’ two Liberian men were arrested by federal authorities on Oct. 28.

They are identified as Anthony Chadheen, 33, of Providence, and Alvin Pennue, 31, of Indianapolis. Both men have pleaded not guilty in US District Court in Providence to charges of “passing a fictitious obligation of the United States.’’

They are also being investigated in connection with the scam that victimized the Fall River man, authorities said.



Seriously, just how stupid are Americans???