
A man who got away with $242M using ‘black magic’ - goodcanadian
http://www.bbc.com/news/stories-42878021
======
firasd
Reminds me of a great (now-deleted) tweet I saw a few years ago: "Everything
is legal if you scale it up." Convert the cash to assets, then convert the
assets to political clout---at that point the cash heist is in the rear-view
mirror...

~~~
matte_black
It will catch up to you in the end.

~~~
firasd
The examples that came to my mind when I first saw that tweet were:
Napster/Youtube (unauthorized content sharing scaled up to such a degree that
the media industry had to shift to streaming business models), Uber, the
ongoing US legalization of marijuana (too much of the population uses it for
abolition to be effective).

~~~
aje403
Cryptocurrency

~~~
jacquesm
I really don't see the relevance.

~~~
dcow
Most states don't allow other currencies.

~~~
jacquesm
The number of states that do not allow other currencies is vanishingly small.
You can have Dollars, Euros, Yen and whatever else your heart desires without
any kind of penalty in most places of the world.

------
shubb
The statement that signing off the transfers wasn't the work of one man is
probably accurate.

So, what was this? Was Sissoko acting as a mule for getting money out of the
bank and transferring it to other places?

One way to launder money is to buy things after all. Luxury goods like food,
wine and art are particularly good for this. If I need to give you $1000 with
plausible deniability, then if I go to your restaurant and pay $1000 for a $50
meal, that does the job.

So, someone wanted to quietly move millions of dollars out of a bank, and then
gave it to someone who possibly laundered it, and did things like running and
airline and buying military helicopters (what other military hardware was he
not caught buying?).

Then the US diplomatic system went to bat for him in court. Black magic or
black budget?

(Edit: the spies angle is probably a bit of a push, but I think speculating he
was laundering for a bigger fish isn't)

~~~
acobster
I find it much more plausible that Ayoub, the bank agent, simply took the fall
for a handful of other people who were also conned. The more elaborate
explanations smack of mistaking ignorance for malice.

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koolba
This guy sounds awesome. If there are any aspiring screenwriters out there
this would make a great movie. Think _Catch Me If You Can_ but more modern and
international.

~~~
shortoncash
And cast Eddie Murphy as Sissoko.

~~~
michaelmwangi
Haha yep he would fit perfectly!

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roadbeats
He should do an ICO and get back to the game

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pjc50
The "send me your money and I'll send double back" scam is a staple among kids
playing MMOs since at least the days of Runescape. Doubtless it goes a lot
further back.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
How does this work exactly?

I can see how it works in the short term e.g. you give me money, I give you
double, you give me lots of money and I disappear with it. But it seems he had
an ongoing relationship with the Daubi bank manager, how is that possible?

~~~
jan_g

        ... Mohammed Ayoub had claimed at his trial that Sissoko had put him under a spell ...
    

Mr. Ayoub is the person working at Dubai bank. So, I'd guess some form of
social engineering, where Sissoko had been convincing enough to repeatedly
make Mr. Ayoub wire money to different accounts around the world.

~~~
JackFr
Or he's lying.

Or maybe there were a bunch of them stealing and Sissoko was laundering for
them and Ayoub was the designated fall guy, and this was the best lie the
group could come up with.

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kylell
Still the writer is telling the story as an absolute truth, if he claimed
could double money, why that guy kept sending him money without getting back
anything doubled?

And 3 years, the sentences, way to little, something doesn't add up, I'm
inclined to believe that he actually was some kind of scapegoat, that yes he
received money from the bank, but a cover up, also the bank didn't noticed, so
much money going out without justification?

~~~
Kiro
Yeah, I was really hoping the article would explain more.

~~~
dkersten
I assumed he was giving back doubled amounts at a small scale using borrowed
money or whatever, then when he got a large sum he ran. But even if that’s
what he did, I don’t know how he jumped from small amounts he could borrow to
$242 million. I guess we will never know for sure how he did it.

------
hutzlibu
Very interesting story, but disappointing interview with the man in the end.
Why didn't she asked him, how he made his money, when he declined, that he was
responsible for the theft?

~~~
protopeer
yeah, i was really keen to find out how he managed to be "worth $400m at one
point", prior to the theft.

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Jedd
> It's rumoured he was also forced to undergo an exorcism, to cure him of his
> belief in black magic.

In a culture of woo, this doubtless makes some kind of sense.

~~~
barrkel
We all live in cultures of woo, we just can't see the woo from the inside.

Cf. ICOs, irrational exuberance, etc.

~~~
ta2987
Yes, yes, everything is the same.

~~~
logfromblammo
I like my woo to come with auditable history and objectively measurable data.

Then you can get a brand new story every time there is a contradiction.

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kazinator
"I have magic powers to double your money" is exactly the sort of banks use to
promote their mutual funds and whatnot.

~~~
justherefortart
You should see what the Vatican has done with people's donations. Gorgeous
city!

~~~
Terretta
Took them a while.

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lawlessone
>"He walked into Citibank one day, no appointment, met a teller and he ended
up marrying her,"

This guy is smooth.

~~~
imjk
I assume if she was a teller and saw, say $100MM, in an account assigned to
him, it wouldn't be unimaginable for her to believe whatever story he conjures
up.

~~~
SolarNet
Also he paid her half a million (a million in today's money) for her help.
Less a wife, and more a special kind of legally protected employee.

~~~
gowld
Charles Manson married one of the witnesses against him in order to prevent
her from being compelled to testify.

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jacquesm
> Sissoko has never faced justice. In his absence, a Dubai court sentenced him
> to three years for fraud and practis[sic]ing magic.

Well that's good. We really can't have people going around practicing magic,
who knows what could come of it.

~~~
peeters
> practis[sic]ing magic.

You don't need to add [sic] when it's correct (this is a British news site).

~~~
c22
Sic doesn't mean "incorrect", it means "as written". You use it anytime a
reader might be confused to show that you haven't made a mistake while quoting
someone which could potentially change the meaning or context of the quote.

~~~
bllguo
OTOH, doesn't the [sic] come after the word? Never seen it like this.

~~~
panopticon
Yeah, putting it in the middle of a word is very odd.

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ztoben
Okay, someone help me follow this. I understand the whole give me money and
I'll double it thing. But how did he end up with $242 million? That seems like
and incredible amount for a single person to have the authority to give away.

~~~
firasd
Did some googling and based on this legal judgment it seems like his
relationship with the woman at Citibank really helped in making withdrawals
from the Dubai Islamic Bank
[https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2504755/dubai-
islamic-...](https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2504755/dubai-islamic-bank-
v-citibank-na/)

Also found this article from '98 where a coworker asks the same thing and gets
the same answer Ayyoub gave other people: _" I asked how he had transferred so
much money without approval or authorization," Salim later recalled. "Ayyoub
said he had been under the influence of, or pressured by, the rich man to
transfer the money."_ [http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/babas-big-
bucks-6359873](http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/babas-big-bucks-6359873)

Also, this 2001 article suggests the transfers "were disguised in falsified
bank ledgers" [http://gulfnews.com/news/uae/general/jail-sentences-
dropped-...](http://gulfnews.com/news/uae/general/jail-sentences-dropped-in-
islamic-bank-embezzlement-case-1.422297)

~~~
samstave
Given the current state of computers and surveillance, It would seem that we
dont know anything about the simplicity required to pull off mass heists in
the age prior to computers-in-their-current-form....

It would seem that it was REALLY easy to rob banks in the past.

I wonder what Dillenger's actual networth would have been...

~~~
dfox
American (and thus international) banking seems to work on the somehow
backwads principle of allowing allmost any transaction without any real
authorization (eg. credits cards, direct debits, checks and such, where only
thing you really need to know for the transaction to happen is some semi-
public number) and dealing with possible issues after the fact On the other
hand the system is pretty good at finding the party responsible, or in other
words whose insurance will be billed for the missing money (for example when
you look at it from this PoV the EMV protocols and cryptography used make
sense). But for that to work someone has to be actually looking for the
issues.

~~~
dfox
Somewhat tangential but relevant: As I'm currently moving I spent some part of
the afternoon by changing periodic payments setup on my bank account and was
somehow amused by the "create transaction" menu in my (european) banks' web
application. There is menu item which essentially says "Direct debit (this is
probably not what you want)".

~~~
samstave
This problem has long been a "what-if-cuz-that-would-be-nice" service:

Think of a last-pass for all your varied accounts, where the service allows
you to update your core information and then select which of your accounts who
have subscribed to your profile info should just be updated by the service.

So if you move - with one click, update all your linked account details for
zip/billing/shipping/etc...

Obviously provide a diff review opportunity and a MFA heavy confirmation
process - but with an easily revertible process as well.

as well as monitoring of logins to all, and alerts for any changes to any...

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happy-go-lucky
Coincidentally, on the BBC News is _Nirav Modi: Who is India 's scandal-linked
billionaire?_

[http://www.bbc.com/news/business-43081499](http://www.bbc.com/news/business-43081499)

> Then this week, the same bank publicly alleged that the jeweller was among
> those involved in an alleged $1.8bn fraud - which has led to fears for
> India's second-largest state-run bank.

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raesene9
And this kind of thing is why banks are _meant_ to have rigorous segregation
of duties and audit regimes, lots of money is a dreadful temptation.

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JackFr
There's no black magic, there is a conspiracy to steal and launder money, a
bank that wants to hide the problem, complicit courts and credulous western
reporters who will literally believe anything.

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makkesk8
I truly see a good movie to be made here.

~~~
52-6F-62
I'd love to see this.

Who could play the man?

~~~
cestith
Idris Elba? Shemar Moore? Arinzé Kene? Donald Glover? Ron Funches? Michael B.
Jordan? Morris Chestnut?

How's the drama/comedy split on this one?

Denzel Washington might be a little old for his earlier exploits, but don't
count him out.

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eccbits
When I saw the title I thought it was about a cryptocurrency

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troels
> He would give away money, but … to my knowledge it was never done in a way
> that he didn't get publicity for it.

Well. That's a bit of a circular argument.

~~~
taoistextremist
I don't think so. He could have given away money in a more discreet fashion
and it would be evident that he did so and not have been for publicity.

~~~
tmnvix
Maybe he did and they were unaware of it (n.b. this is the circular argument).

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rajacombinator
Fascinating story but disappointing uninterested article.

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gumby
This article would have been better had they used pictures of Dubai from the
1990s when it was still a backwater.

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notahacker
Looking forward to his ICO

~~~
aje403
Come to think of it - could black magic explain crypto prices?

~~~
jrs95
_meme magick is real_

