Bulgarian Police Bust Defrauding Fake 'US Marines'

The Bulgarian police have arrested two men from Liberia holding EU passports who pretended to be former US marines in order to commit fraud.

The two Liberian men aged 45 and 42 have German and Dutch passports, respectively. They were arrested for committing a fraud for EUR 130 000 in Bulgaria's Black Sea city of Burgas and for preparing a second fraud attempt in Sofia.

The two men told their potential victims that they are former US marines, and that they can triple a sum of money given to them by forging banknotes, and even provided a demonstration of their method.

However, in order for the forgery to be successful, they asked their "clients" to keep the banknotes in a dark safe for several days, giving them the key. When the victims opened the safe a few days later, however, they found only white paper sheets instead of the banknotes they gave to the fraudsters, and had no way of contacting them.

The two Liberian men have been arrested for 72 hours, and have been charged with forgery, the Interior Ministry said.