Manhunt launched to nab conman and accomplice

A manhunt has been underway to capture a European conman and his Asian associate in the Kingdom. The men, who cheated more than 2,500 people for amounts of over BD60, 000, promised them “fictitious jobs,” before they vanished from the recruitment agencies map in Bahrain.

Sources confirmed that the elderly European and his young Asian associate had placed advertisements for recruitment online. When candidates applied, they received a call from the fraudsters, asking them to attend an interview in their so-called recruitment agency headquarters in the Capital.

“The victims were convinced that they would be hired in the jobs they had applied for. They were asked to pay a fee of BD20 – 25 for a more professional CV,” as claimed by the office. The victims eventually paid the fees and never receive any calls back from the company, which vanished in a short period of time,” a source informed.

The conmen apparently hired a number of Bahraini employees to convince the public that their establishment is legitimate. A few former employees told our sister newspaper, Al Ayam, that the man seldom paid them their wages and sacked many of them before the expiry of their work contracts.

One of the former employees of the company informed that the “old man would delete some of the information in the applicants’ CVs, to inform them that information is missing and avail himself of more time before applicants could ask for their money back.” The company, which apparently changed its headquarters location several times in the previous 12 months, would not accept to meet old applicants.

This has been proved by one of the former applicants, who contacted the company and pretended to be a new applicant. That was when the company’s representative agreed to fix an appointment for him. Other victims informed that the conmen not only cheated individuals, but also conned rental, real estate and commercial companies in the country.