Several families in northern France are sounding the alarm, as explain it to our French colleagues from La Voix du Nord. There would also be victims in Belgium.
Around noon on January 25, on returning from shopping, an elderly lady from Roubaix took the metro at the Grand-Place. Arrived at the Roubaix train station, she is approached by a man of North African origin, like her. “He asks her the way to go to the Mosque then he explains that he knows her”, explains his son Farès to the VDN. “He called her by her first name. He talked about his daughter, also giving her first name. My mother was not suspicious. »
The trap closes, with the help of an accomplice. “He placed a black stone in his hand and while talking to him non-stop, it entered his head. My mother was like a remote control. »
“Hypnosis, trickery, superstition and threats”
Thanks to a clever mix of hypnosis, trickery, superstition and threats, this mother agrees to go to her house and give them a box containing family jewels. A lifetime. “He was waiting for her at the bottom of the building. He took the jewelry from the box. He went so far as to try to rob her by directly taking the rings and the necklace she had on her and then he left threatening her. That’s when she realised. She screamed. Neighbors came out to help him but it was already too late. »
The damage is significant. A complaint was immediately filed at the Roubaix police station.
“The devil has come home. She, who laughed all the time, hanged herself”
This stratagem, which could be called theft under hypnosis, could make you smile, but it is a real trauma for the victims. In Lyon, a 78-year-old mother killed herself after being stripped of all her jewelry.
“After the facts, she was no longer herself”, explains her daughter, who explains by videoconference a procedure identical to that of Roubaix. “The devil has come home. She, who laughed all the time, hanged herself. I think she felt humiliated for being tricked that way. I have hate. »
“We have identified victims everywhere in France and Belgium”
Two years ago, Fatima (assumed name), 64, was the victim of an identical theft, on her return from the Tourcoing market. Since 2020, his daughters have been doing real detective work. Thanks to social networks, they have managed to collect dozens of testimonials, with often identical operating methods. Their investigation even led to the arrest of two suspects… released too quickly for their taste. “We are not alone, says Yasmina (assumed first name), who does not give up. We have identified victims everywhere in France and Belgium. It is an international network, but I have the impression that the public authorities do not take the measure of the problem. »
“There are many more victims than those identified with damages that exceed, for some, 100,000 euros. There are many women who are ashamed. They don’t even dare to talk about it to their husbands or their children and they don’t file a complaint. »
A “Samaoui” scam?
Several families contacted by our French colleagues are convinced of this, as the technique is well established. “The scammers speak in Arabic but with their accent, we think they must be of Moroccan origin”, explains one of them. The link is quickly made with a technique in vogue in the kingdom of Mohammed VI, the Samaoui scam, a practice that combines fraud and hypnosis.
In October 2019, on Twitter, the General Directorate of Moroccan National Security also launched an alert, “when the divinatory power serves the crook”.
Several Moroccan press articles also detail this technique which, it is true, is similar to the modus operandi described by French victims. Often accompanied by a woman, the scammer pretends to be a marabout endowed with supernatural powers. He offers his victim to purify the goods in his possession, making him believe that they are under the effect of a curse. The victim consents and gives him all his property.
Once the goods have been “purified” and carefully wrapped in a package, the scammer returns them to the victim, ordering him to open it only later, the time to prepare his escape. And when the victim finally opens the package, she realizes that the jewels have been replaced by pebbles…