Dr. Mareena Reffai

There has been some incidences which happened to several people at the same time within the last one month.

A person who calls himself Iflar calls a moulavi or an organization and says he has brought money from a famous donor from Saudi and that he will meet you to hand it over to you in a week or two. He mentions large amounts like 2 – 5 million. After a week or so he calls and says he had given part of this to other needy people and goes into great details of who the recipients were, careful not to mention the names of the recipients. He keeps talking about Allah and His Prophet (sal) incessantly and keeps adding promises upon promises about what he can get from the donor. He says he will deliver computers and when checked for the said computer company they will also vouch saying the computers were in fact ordered.

After building up confidence, he says he also has brought some vacancies and wants to recruit some people for jobs and that the enrollment is absolutely free and to give him names. Once the names are given he slyly says we’d better charge them a very small fee lest they do not turn up for the job after all the expenditure of visa, medical etc.

If one is not sharp one would easily fall for this trick and pay since he promises so many things with Allah’s name mentioned at every sentence. However he is not a very clever trickster since he does not know even the name of the company and when asked for the address of the company he says – and writes – Supplies trading company, Madeena street, “opposite the bridge”. No numbers.

People have paid up to millions to him to my knowledge – as recently as last week; with the money withdrawn from ATM counters he disappears from the scene. The phone that kept bothering continuously gets disconnected. He just vanishes into thin air. And starts with another person – or persons – on another phone number.

Now the case is with the police.

On inquiring further we heard such things have happened in the past too and people have not spoken about this out of shame of being duped. . Apparently there are three people who had been doing this trick. they always approach moulavis and organizations, knowing that people will pay the money trusting these people.

He had even cheated 8 widows of Rs.1500 each and also a kidney transplant patient saying he has a draft for 7,70,000 and if they deposit the 70,000 he will handover the draft.

See the letter sent to police by a person who has been cheated by him.

This is to notify you of a confidence trickster who has cheated several people of money. The fraudster name isMohamed Iflar alias Mohamed irshad

This person, Mohamed Iflar, had contacted a friend of mine saying he would ensure employment in Jeddah for a refundable deposit of Rs.14, 000 per person. I made the deposit of Rs.28, 000 on their behalf at the Nations Trust bank, Dehiwela Branch on the 4th Of March 2010 at 5.30 p.m.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  He promised to return this sum of money to me once the 2 applicants reached Jeddah.

When I checked back with the bank the same evening I was told this sum of money had been withdrawn through the ATM.

On calling him again, he advised us not to doubt him and told me to take the 2 applicants with their passports and other necessary documents to a travel agent in Fort on the 12th of March at 9.00 a.m. to collect the tickets. The agency was Ibrahim Enterprises situated at the Canal Road Fort.

On arrival there we were told by a shocked agent that he knew no such person and had no idea of any deal like this. ItƒÆ’‚¢ƒ¢-¡‚¬ƒ¢-¾‚¢s only then we realized we had been cheated by this fraudster,ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚  Iflar.

ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ If anyone knows of any similar incidences please notify us to prevent poor people being taken for a ride.