Nigerian con artist targets local man

Hays County sheriff’s officials are investigating a “pigeon drop” scam that conned a local man out of about $2,000.

Officials say the local resident, a man in his 60s, was getting gas at the Kyle H-E-B Wednesday afternoon when he was approached by a black male that he described as having a heavy Nigerian accent.

“He said he had a lot of money and wanted assistance handing it out to needy people,” said Hays County spokesperson Leroy Opiela.

According to investigators, the victim agreed to drive the man to the Chevron gas station on IH-35 at Main Street in Buda. Another man came out of the McDonalds’s wearing a store name tag, and said he was the McDonald’s manager. He also agreed to add to the money, and they asked the victim to show good faith in their effort by adding cash as well.
The trio drive to a nearby Wells Fargo ATM machine, where the victim pulled about $2,000, as well as $200 spending money, investigators said, then returned to the Chevron station.

“The two suspects exited the vehicle with the money and told the victim they were going to walk around the building to discuss what they would do,” Opiela said. “They returned to the victim and told him to give them the rest of his money. He complied and the suspects left with all the money.”

The two suspects left on foot, headed in a northerly direction, investigators said.

The man with the Nigerian accent was about 5’ 10” tall, while the other man was about 6’ tall, Opiela said.

Pigeon drops are common scams that occur both online and face to face. Typically, the victim is conned into putting up good faith money to access a valuable object or larger pool of money. In the original version of the scam, the money is then swapped out while the victim isn’t looking. Often, the victim is given the opportunity to sneak away with what he thinks is all the cash – but actually leaves with worthless paper.

“Traditionally what would happen is they would come back, give him an envelope, and they would leave,” Opiela said. “When they opened the envelope it would be full of paper, not money.”

One internet version of this trick is referred to as the “Nigerian scam” because the con artists pretend to work for the Nigerian government, saying they need a foreign bank account to deposit large sums of money. They then con victims into paying fake transfer fees, bribes or taxes.

Though the man never felt physically threatened, at some point his instincts warned him that he was being scammed, Opiela said.

“He realized it,” Opiela said. “He said, ‘I knew better. The further along this went on, I knew I had messed up, but by then it was too late to do anything.’”