Focus on Africans claiming to be sons of ex-President

The CID told the Colombo Additional Magistrate yesterday that they were looking for two Africans who had attempted to deceive a businessman and his wife to the tune of several millions of rupees by promising to invest in a joint venture while claiming they were the exiled sons of a slain President of Congo.

This was revealed before Colombo Additional Magistrate Pavithra Pathirana by CID Officer Wijeratne Wasala who submitted that the businessman who has an office in Colombo had met an African national in a five star hotel in Colombo.

The African had initially befriended the husband had told him that he was a son of slain President of Congo and their family migrated to France after the killing of his father.

He had also told the couple that he came to Colombo to find business partners to start a joint venture in Sri Lanka. Thus the husband had agreed to take the African as a partner in his metal quarry business.

Thereafter the African had visited the office of the businessman in Colombo on several occasions and gone to see the metal quarry with the couple.

Sometime later the African had introduced another African claiming to be his brother who was said to have come to Colombo to start the business.

The suspects had then shown some chemicals and bundles of stained papers alleged to be US dollars. When the chemical was applied on three of the papers it had turned into US100 Dollar notes.

Thereafter, the Africans had told the couple that since the chemical was finished they wanted to get down more and had asked for Rs 1.2 million to get it down. The couple who became suspicious had complained the matter to the CID and the two Africans had gone missing thereafter. (T. Farook Thajudeen)