For being Greedy, I lost a LOOOT.
Second time in my life.
I tracked the guy back several months later, with the help of some high-rank cop friends got the guy arrested, he spent 3 days in a cell, signed with me a repayment plan in Fiscalia, and never got to pay a dime.
Too bad he was not sent to a prison, fiscal could not do that because he was not arrested in flagrante delito and I did not file a complaint on the day of scam. So he frightened him with the usual buh-buh to signing a repayment plan, so as to have a base for further action.
I was yet too busy to pursue his arrest for failure to comply with the Fiscal's orders, but on one of my next trips to the Capital I will follow up.
This was the scam:
At some point a guy hands me over the card at Higuey terminal in Parque Enriquillo. Says cambio and other BS.
At one point, long time later, I call.
I was to change 4000 dollars (ok, stop laughing on me at this point), I was offered 34 when the rate was 32.
I arrange with the guy to meet in front of my bank. I am with 2 friends. He comes alone (at that point). He brings a LOTS of 2000's and lots of hundreds.
I take 4000 dollars from the account. He has pesos. I tell him we go check the pesos inside the bank (that it would be false was my concern). He says OK, but he cannot go in because the bank people would get to see we make "illegal operation" and could get him into trouble. He gives money to a friend of mine to take them to a bank to check. I wait with another friend with the guy one block away. I knew the guy would try to pull a scam. I call my friend and tell him to deposit pesos into my pesos account. But the friend is already out of bank and it was after 5 so the bank closed, could not get back. BAAAD luck.
Ok, so he comes back and says that the bank says 2000's are OK. We count the money and it?s off 4000 pesos. The guy says oh, right the rate is different, and he puts in 8- 500 pesos notes. We sit and start counting, the guy always trying to get me confused. At one point he got rolled lots of 2000's in his palm so as to remove it in a good moment. He tried to pull various scams but I always caught him and recounted. I knew he was going to scam so I was looking and looking and looking. I guess I should have terminated the transaction right there (I still had dollars on me) and walk away. But my fault, I felt unbeatable, smarter than the guy, he would not scam me, that's what I thought. I finally made sure money was OK and all counted for in MY HAND and I handed it over to one of the guys that were with me, a good friend, and a huge guy. The "cambiador" asks for the dollars, I give him the 4000 bucks. At that point he says he needs to check them. I say OK, but the bank's closed. He says we would go to Caribe Express nearby, couple of blocks away. We say OK, we have a car, let's go. He says no, we would walk. Should be another warning for me, but at that point I already has pesos, all counted for. But after walking 3 blocks, my friends tell me they are seeing some suspicious movements, 2 motorcycles etc. The guy also makes a phone call, saying that I am with 2 guys. At that point I knew we might be walking into ambush. I stopped him (we were still on the busy street) and told him that deals over. He takes the dollars and walks, we are not walking with him. At that point, I was not thinking clearly, the fear was taking over, so I made a mistake to concede when he asked for the pesos. I just wanted to have this terminated. I asked my friend to give him pesos, and he gave me dollars. I started to count dollars, and while counting the guy took off on one of the motorcycles. I finished counting, and I was short of 10- 100 bills. He would not pull the scam had my awareness of the situation not gotten down, could just tell him to f*** off with the dollars he already had at hand, or not hand over the pesos before finishing the counting. Well, after the war, everybody's a general.
