Two Cameroonian men were sentenced to nine months in jail for conspiring to defraud a man by giving him fake cash in exchange for his Hummer four-wheel drive vehicle through a “black money scam”.

Marcelin Kamwa, 37, and Jean Jacques Tientcheu, 40, pleaded guilty before Magistrate Doreen Clarke to committing the crime on and before last September 7.

Police Inspector Jonathan Ferris, prosecuting, informed the court when the two men were arraigned in September that a man had told him the accused approached him with a proposal to exchange his Hummer for €50,000 in cash. They had said the money would be covered in black iodine-based dye that could be washed off.

The police monitored the whereabouts of the two men indicated and they were spotted driving to Qui-Si-Sana, in Sliema, where they explained to the victim how to wash off the black dye using a vitamin C solution and demonstrated it on a genuine €50 note.

The victim gave the police more details about where the deal was to be concluded and, at 9.30am on September 7, officers went to the Astra Hotel in Sliema. In the room occupied by the two men they found the false money being prepared and the accused were arrested and taken to court.