The Internal Security Forces declared on Friday that they had arrested, on August 14 and 16, in the southern suburbs of Beirut, two men who were part of an international network whose goal is to “deceive” Lebanese expatriates and extort their money.
In practice, members of this network would get in touch with expatriates and offer to transfer money to their relatives in Lebanon, without any commission. They would thus take the money directly from the expatriates and their partners in Lebanon and provide the expatriates’ relatives with counterfeit bills. These counterfeit bills were counted in front of them using a machine that had been tampered with to not detect the fake bills.
The stolen amounts ranged from $30,000 to $100,000 for each transfer.
The two individuals who were arrested confessed to their crime. The first explained that he received the counterfeit bills from a network member in the southern suburbs of Beirut. The second admitted that he provided the vehicles to transport the money, which he collected from an illegal money transfer office located in the Salim Slam region of Beirut. The owner of this office was arrested on August 18, and the office was sealed.
The judicial investigation is ongoing, and the arrested individuals have been handed over to the competent authorities.
