Hello all. I am wondering if any of you are familiar with what I believe to be a scam. I know an individual who is in deep with few hundred thousand USD, and I warned and pleaded withhim not to do it, but he did (greed can do some funny things). He is still holding out hope, but I see him slowly beginning to realize it may not be so.
Basically, a business associate of his (both are in US) has dealings in Africa and travels there for business quite a bit. They have taken part in a venture where they are going to secure a license from the government of an unnamed African nation to print and distribute scratch-off lottery tickets. The return on investment is astronomical (first red flag). The money is supposedly being used to grease certain local officials to ensure this happens (another red flag). This has been going on for months. Delay after delay. I told my friend his business associate is in on it (this man was born in, and lived a long time in a neighboring African nation, he is well aware of the business climate there).
After many delays, my friend went to this nation. He spent a couple of months there waiting it out. While he was there he was taken to elaborate offices, shown what he saw as tangible evidence this was real (but if the con is for such a vast sum of money, you would think the conmen would invest a bit and go out of their way to make it look good; also, they are probably working others at the same time - I joked to my friend he may have passed other victims in their offices when he went in there).
Anyone familiar with this?