I Visited Vault of Barclays Bank - "419" Victim

Fraud 'victim' on run with debts of over $300,000 (BD113,400) in two separate international fraud scams.
The 40-year-old father-of-two became the victim of conmen when he replied to two e-mails offering the chance to earn millions of dollars.

In exchange for an initial payment of just $12,800 (BD4,838), he was promised he would receive $66.7 million (BD25.2m).

The deal was that he would help move millions tied up in bank accounts in Nigeria and South Africa by acting as a beneficiary for the money. But the costs started to pile up as he was conned into parting with more and more cash.

Now the millions have not materialised and he - along with a number of other men he approached to fund the schemes - have now lost $310,000 (BD117,180).

The man in question is an expatriate who asked not to be identified, but he has lived in Bahrain for the past 16 years.

He fled Bahrain yesterday after receiving threats from people who also lost money in the venture - just days after his wife and children also left the country.

Intelligence services in the US and the UK have already said they are unable to help, while officials at his own embassy advised him to flee rather than risk lengthy legal action - or worse - in Bahrain.

"It is all coming on me," he told the GDN prior to his departure.

"I was the one who instigated it. I was the middle man and people are coming to me and asking for their money.

"I could end up in jail or possibly dead."

It all started in January last year when he posted a classified advert for bitumen on the Internet. He was subsequently inundated with e-mails from people offering quick ways to make money.

At the time, he was facing redundancy and decided to reply to two of them.

"I wanted to be able to provide my children and family with a better standard of living," he said.

"It was also a case of greed and dreams - now it is a nightmare."

Despite making two trips to Amsterdam, Holland, and three to Ghana last year - sometimes for up to a month at a time - he only recently came clean with his wife.

"I had to tell her," he said. "She was wondering what was wrong. I was snapping at the kids and short-tempered.

"She thinks we should not run - that we will be looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives.

"That may be the case, but what are the options? Sit here and wait for someone to come after me?"

The man has held a number of responsible positions in Bahrain, but would not reveal where he intends to run to.

However, he criticised the international legal system for failing to protect people who fall prey to fraud.

"I am a victim," he said. "We are all victims. If it is a scam why can't the governments where this happened investigate.

"They could investigate the companies and banks and see what can be done."

He even approached authorities in Bahrain, but was told by officials at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) that they were unable to intervene.

"They basically wished me luck and said there is nothing they can do," he said.

"But I was told that if the people I owe money file a case against me in Bahrain, I will be stuck here.

"I don't know where we will go or what we will do - we are ruined."

On one of his visits to Ghana he claims to have actually been taken inside the vault of Barclays Bank in Accra.

He says a man claiming to be the bank manager confirmed that millions of dollars in $100 bills were actually his.

But Barclays denied any responsibility and said it was treating the matter as an external fraud.

"We are 100 per cent certain that this was an external fraud, but we are looking into how these people can do this sort of thing," said a bank spokesman.

"Every indication we are getting is he is a victim of fraud, which has nothing to do with Barclays.

"All the documents have been forged - every document, name and connection to the bank is fraudulent.

"But we are looking into it and are concerned about it."

The spokesman said he may have been taken to a false location.

"This man says he was taken to the bank vault and gave us a couple of names, but neither of these names are down in any form as bank officials for Barclays in Ghana," he said.

"Entry into the bank vault is absolutely prohibited except for authorised staff of the branch.

"It seems it is possible that he was misled that it was the branch."