Three Cases in relation to issuing dollar checks with fraud bank guarantees and taking large amounts of cash from retailers
The Police have been reported of 3 cases where retailers have been deceived through dollar checks with fraud bank guarantees and also through taking large amounts of cash from them. In a news conference held, Head of Commercial Crime Unit, Sub-Inspector of Police, Mohamed Fazeen informed that the fraudsters in these cases have taken large amount of cash from retailers with the promise that they would find them dollars, and then gave them dollar checks with fraud bank guarantees.
The 3 cases reported to the media were: the case of a person taking 1.8 million cash from Rainbow shop on the 21st February and fleeing with it; the case of a Sri Lankan taking 4 million from United Food Supply and ELL Maldives; and, the case of 501, 400/- taken from KDM shop. The suspect linked to the case of KDM shop has already been investigated and the case is pending at the Prosecutor Generals Office.
Sub-Inspector Fazeen also pointed out that that the fraudsters targeted large retailers and the checks were issued to them on a Thursday around the time the banks closed so that these people had ample time to flee with the cash as the checks could on be taken to the bank the following Sunday. As the bank guarantees with these checks are frauds, the accounts did not have any cash in them which can be withdrawn. He also noted that the fraudster gained the trust of the retailers by changing small amounts of cash into dollars and then taking larger amount - in millions. As a result, Sub-Inspector Fazeen advised all traders and retailers to be cautious of such fraudulence, to attain proper information about the person handling cash especially of such large amounts, and to also check whether the bank guarantees are genuine before entrusting such large amounts of cash to a person.
