Three imprisoned over 'black money' scam

Three Africans were yesterday jailed for two years after being found guilty of conspiring to commit fraud and defrauding a Maltese man of Lm12,000.

Benjamin Saygbe, 39, a Liberian, Yaya Traore, 31 and Yacou Doukoure, 29, born in the Ivory Coast, were imprisoned after a long and complex investigation into "a black money scam" which originated in Africa.

The three men were accused of organising and belonging to a group of persons with a view to commit criminal offences, conspiring to commit a crime and fraudulently making an illicit gain of over Lm10,000 to the detriment of Anton Camilleri and other persons. The offences took place last September.

Inspector Michael Mallia testified that on the September 10, Mr Camilleri filed a report with the police about a certain Tom, a refugee whom he used to employ.

Accompanied by an unknown person, Tom had met Mr Camilleri in St Paul's Bay and had asked him to keep a locked piece of luggage containing valuables. Tom further requested a loan of Lm1,000 which Mr Camilleri gave him.

A few days later, Tom contacted Mr Camilleri again and asked whether he could lend him another Lm12,000. He was told that the money would be used to buy a special liquid that was meant to turn special black paper found in the luggage into cash. Mr Camilleri agreed to lend him the money.

A few days later, Tom again met Mr Camilleri and gave him a wrapped bottle and asked Mr Camilleri to keep it in a safe place, together with the luggage.

Mr Camilleri then started receiving life threatening phone calls and the caller demanded €200,000. It was at this point that Mr Camilleri filed a report with the police.

Police investigations revealed that the person referred to as Tom was Kaba Konate, an immigrant who was granted refugee status in Malta.

Mr Konate was known to be residing in a flat in Qawra and in a search, the police found a wrapped object similar to the one Mr Camilleri had handed over to the police. Mr Konate was not found, however, and following investigations, the police believe he went to Italy.

Inspector Mallia said that when the luggage that had been given to Mr Camilleri was opened by forensic experts, black papers the size of currency notes were found. Similar objects were found in one of the rooms of the flat where Mr Konate used to live.

Investigations revealed the network Mr Konate had with Yaya Traore, Yacou Doukoure and Benjamin Saygbe. The latter was staying at the Corinthia Palace Hotel in Attard.

A search in his hotel room turned up a document, which gave step-by-step instructions on how to "blacken money". During the search, Mr Saygbe grabbed one of the papers containing the instructions and tried to swallow it, but was prevented from doing so by the prompt intervention of the police.

Questioned about his action, the accused said he had tried to destroy the paper because it contained personal information about his bi-sexual orientation, but later said he had mistaken the paper. The police found no paper with any details about Mr Saygbe's personal lifestyle.

When shown the black strips of paper, Mr Doukoure first said these were "healing bandages" used in African rituals but later admitted that the black carbonised paper was meant to make people believe it was money.

A genuine currency note that had been blackened with ink was placed on top of wads of black paper and when selling these to people, who would be conned, they would be asked to "wash" the first note, which shed the ink and made one believe that the whole bundle of notes was real money.

He told the police that people would be duped into believing this and buy them and would later be convinced to buy an expensive liquid which would 'clean' the paper and turn it into real currency.

Mr Doukoure said the idea had originated in Africa and the other two accused knew what he was doing. It was, Mr Traore who had called him and agreed with him to come to Malta to carry out the scam.

The court noted that when Mr Camilleri initially refused to hand over the Lm12,000, he started receiving threats and the person threatening him spoke about his two young children. This worried Mr Camilleri and when he told his wife the whole story she asked him to hand over the money "for the sake of the children".

Investigations showed that some of the anonymous calls to Mr Camilleri were being made from Mr Traore's phone.

Inspectors Michael Mallia and Kevin Borg prosecuted.