How I almost got scammed

This is the story of how I almost got scammed and rugged.

It all started back when I was in Dubai I had a friend at that time who owned an agency.

He told me that one of his clients was a really high end guy from DIFC (DIFC is the financial hub of Dubai).

The fact that I had reached an audience and the guy said he would love to get on a podcast with me. I was cool with the idea and said okay let’s get on a podcast and chat. 

Before doing the podcast, we decided to meet up first and get to know each other and see how things are going. 

He invited me to meet him at the Bulgari Yacht Club. At this time the Bulgari Yacht Club was one of the best cigar lounges in Dubai. 

It’s a place where you won’t have access unless you have your own yacht. When I met him, he claimed that they have 2 big yachts from his fund that were parked outside the marina.

Apparently, they were parked outside because they were trying to find out if both of them could fit in the marina.

You see, most young guys like to trust more than they verify. That’s such a wrong thing to do. You’ve got to verify who the person is, even if they are your employees/staff. 

With this guy, I trusted him too much. 

Anyhow, we spoke and I was able to learn a bit more about him. Essentially, he claimed that he was the fund manager of one of the greatest funds in the DIFC. 

He had tons of stories and he even said he knew the president of the fund in the DIFC. It sounded so incredible.

Other things he mentioned were that he was big in offshore bank accounts and getting people returns on their investment and things of that sort.  

He was also Italian so he was able to connect with me on a deeper level. He then gave me a box of cigars as a gift for me to come and meet up. 

In that first meeting I asked him, “what are you getting out of this?” My assumption was that he’s gonna get a podcast with me and whatever else is associated. 

Then he told me “I am really looking for startups to invest in.” He claims that there are not that many startups being started and also there's not that many ideas being created. 

So fund managers are going out on a chase, trying to look for new inspired men that are doing big shit in the world. 

I then briefly mentioned to him some of my ideas I had in mind. He ended up telling me “we could potentially work something out with what you have going on.” 

We then went on a tour of the Yacht Club and started to talk some more. He said “This is a great place you can use on behalf of my fund to host events.” 

I wanted to verify this shit. People have tested my level of loyalty in the past and I just wanted to make sure this was legit or not. 

How did I find out if it was legit? Here’s what I did. I invited him and all of my friends to dinner at a nice cigar bar. 

At the cigar bar we all spoke for quite a long period of time.

My guys were able to learn a lot about him. He also claimed that he was able to solve a lot of issues for my friend (the agency owner). He even mentioned that he can get my agency friend access to Venezuelan oil and disclosed a crazy 50 million offer.

Which was crazy stuff. I just couldn’t believe it. 

We still went on and filmed the podcast together. 

He raised some Red flags during our conversation. He mentioned that “we could open up an offshore bank account for 30k USD or a 15-30% monthly yield on capital investment.” A deal he does with his fund management clients. 

He claimed that his fund is the only fund that has exclusive rights to bank money on offshore bank accounts from the US government. He said that his clients were making tons and tons of money because of this new financial tool that only they had access to. 

At first we felt kinda euphoric in a sense and went to double check and do our own due diligence. 

 I really wanted to avoid being scammed or wasting my time. So I decided to hire a MI5 spy to look over his case. To Look deeply into who he was and everything of that sort. 

It ended up being that he had a lot of bankrupt companies in Italy and the fund that he was managing is an expired fund. 

Once we found that out, we terminated the relationship immediately. 

I was just so mind boggled. This guy who’s in his 60’s or 70’s, spent 5 hours with me over the course of 3 or 4 meetings, and I just did not understand his intentions.

My assumption was that he wanted to raise money for my startup and from that get me access to capital. The reason why he said that he was really happy about being around me is because there’s not that many startups out there for him to invest in. 

To add gas to the fire, the next week the agency owner who recommended that I go on a podcast with him, told me that he hasn’t paid him for about 2 months. 

The moral of the story is, even though it might sound too good to be true.

Never trust it. 

Anything that sounds too good to be true. Is more than likely not true. 

The world is not supposed to be too good to be true. The world is more black than it has light inside. 

Here’s something that a lot of my extremely high networth associates always like to preach. Verify and never trust. Double verify and still not trust. 

You want to always double, triple and quadruple verify whoever you have in your circles. There's a lot of people out there that have mal intentions. 

Moral of the story, verify and NEVER trust blindly.

Go get it man

-JP