Yesterday the below subject, 59-year old Tahee Abdullah Rasheed, was arrested for driving on a suspended driver's license and for possession of a controlled substance. In his vehicle (a white 2003 Jaguar), officers found numerous stacks and rolls of fictitious “show money”, strips of newspaper concealed in a black handkerchief (believed to be used in switch of real money), and a fictitious letter from an attorney at Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, stating he was the inheritor of millions of dollars from an uncle in South Africa. We believe either the suspect was planning to scam someone or had already scammed someone; however, we do not have an identified crime victim.
In the “Jamaican Switch” scam, the suspect uses fictitious bills wrapped up newspaper and a fictitious letter and usually works with one or two other suspects and approaches an elderly or unsuspecting victim. The main suspect pretends to have received a letter stating he has a large inheritance waiting for him if he can obey the wishes of his deceased relative. He tells the victim he needs help to make multiple charitable donations with a small portion of the inheritance he has received before he can collect the main inheritance. He says his time is limited and then flashes what appears to be a large sum of money to the victim, but makes the stipulation that he cannot trust the victim to help unless the victim withdraws his/her money as a sign of trust between them all. A second suspect appears to agree to offer up a large sum of money of his own as a sign of trust. The main suspect promises to reward the victim with a large sum of money for his/her help. If the scam is successful, the victim withdraws a large sum of money from the bank and puts it into the handkerchief with the other suspect’s money. The main suspect tells the victim he will let the victim hold onto the money as a sign of trust, but without the victim seeing this, he switches out the handkerchief containing the real money with the handkerchief containing the newspaper. Both suspects then leave under some guise with a promise to return, and they never do. The victim then realizes he/she is holding a bunch of newspaper.
We hope this has not happened to you, but if this has, please call the Daly City Police Department at (650) 991-8119 or the anonymous TIP line at (650) 873-AIMS. Please refer to case # 16005701.
