DUMB VICTIMS OF THE WEEK: FOOLED BY MONOPOLY MONEY
by Hazed
Usually I write stories about criminals who are particularly stupid, but this week I will tell you about some conmen who succeeded with an audacious scam because their victims were, if not dumb, at least very inattentive.
The crooks used fake money to scam dealers out of diamonds, jewels and watches worth £500,000. But the notes were not clever forgeries that would be hard to spot. No, it was Monopoly money. The fake euro notes even had MONOPOLY written on them, but the thieves cleverly concealed that with the band holding the bundles of notes together.
The gang of conmen were caught after they scammed people in London, Bristol and Leeds. The court heard that fraudster Gianni Accamo was behind the scams. His gang targeted an Australian jewellery dealer in London, telling him that an investor had five million euros to buy diamonds. Accamo posed as a gemologist who went to inspect his stock of valuable stones.
The dealer used a cash counting machine to count bundles of 500 euro notes which totalled 7.7 million euros, but at some point the cash was switched for the Monopoly money. By the time he realised the money was fake, Accamo and the gang had disappeared with the diamonds.
The trial continues.
