African "gold traders" entrap Saudi businessmen

RIYADH, 1 December — An African gang who delayed the handover of 700 kilograms of gold to a group of Saudi dealers has been apprehended after police in Niger, Burkina Faso and Cote d’Ivoire launched a joint operation. Under the deal, the Saudis had paid SR14.25 million in advance.

According to the traders, the two sides reached an agreement to ship gold to Ghana and then to the Kingdom. But the gang started using delaying tactics, which dragged on for eight months. "In the beginning, they appeared genuine as they used banks to carry out their deals," one Saudi trader told Arab News.

After a delay of eight months, the traders arranged another meeting with the gang in Togo with the help of a middleman. "After the consignment arrived in Benin, the gang insisted that it should be re-exported to Togo, saying that there was a company licensed to export gold," the Saudi trader said.

The gang asked them to pay $250,000 to transport the gold to Togo and $200,000 to meet other expenses, such as transshipment and customs clearance.

"While the Saudis were waiting for the shipping of the gold to Togo, they were suddenly rounded up by security officers, who accused them of drug trafficking," the trader said.

The officers, it turned out, were not genuine, and the Saudis were "released" after seven hours of "continuous interrogation" during which the agreement papers were "confiscated."

Saudi traders then decided to send back the gold to Burkina Faso and the authorities in that African country held the consignment on suspicion of being shipped with forged documents.

The man in charge of customs clearance supplied a new consignment of gold at the same price, and this was shipped to Dubai. Later the Saudis learned that it had not in fact left Burkina Faso.

In a last-ditch effort to get out of this trap, Saudi traders approached Niger’s ambassador in a Gulf country who took up the matter at the governmental level. In the meantime, the gang offered to release the goods from the airport upon payment of $35,000. Police nabbed the gang members while they were in the act of receiving the money.