In another series of an adventure gone wrong, a Cameroonian who was lured by his friend to Mali for a fictitious job has told Mimi Mefo Info how he narrowly avoided implication.
Despite naively taking the daunting trip to Mali after a recruitment letter from a certain AnglGoldAshanti company had been mailed to him, Emmanuel in his testimony reveals that he was lucky to have been informed upon arrival by some Cameroonian counterparts of good faith that he was walking into a scam.
Read Emmanuel’s testimony below:
“My name is Emmanuel from the Northwest Region of cameroon. I
was manipulated by a friend based in Mali 3 weeks ago. He called me on the 20th of May on WhatsApp and informed me of a job in Anglogoldchanti company in Mali.
On the 24th an international number from Mali called me claiming that it was the Human Resource Department of the company. During the call, I was told that I have been offered the job and was gaven a deadline of May 30, 2021 for the signing of the contract.
I immediately texted my friend on WhatsApp and asked for more valid legal information with regards to the employment letter. On the 27th of May, the employment letter was sent to me and they insisted that I should be there around on the 30th along side with 550.000frs for the creation of an electronic Bank account, resident permit and health insurance.
My friend told me I was going to travel by land for 3days to get to Mali. It however took me 6 days to get Bamako, Mali where the fictitious company was said to be based. I was not the only victim of the scam as I was in the company of 8 other Cameroonians traveling for thesame job though their agent’s were different from mine.
When we got to Bamakou Mali,we called our verious agents to bring the service car that will pick us up to where we would be accommodated. Rather, the Resource Manager came with a broken taxi claiming that the company driver could not drive by night.
Before entering the taxi, some two Cameroonians walked up to us and told us the job is a scam and presented their I.D cards to us. They told us on how they seized all of their documents and cell phones immediately they sign the contract and force them to be a part of their sect, before they escaped.
when we got there, they took the 3 of us to one small room where we were asked to pass the night on a metrass with just about a 5cm thickness.
We began asking questions and they were unable to give us the appropriate answers. They were more concerned about the 550k. They kept two boys to watch over us so closely but we had to escape by 2:00am to the park.
I sold most of my properties and I’m currently in serious debt. We have been locked up in several police station in Mali and Bukinafaso on our way back to the country
Alot of cameroonians are stranded on the streets there, and alot more cameroonians are still traveling for the same scam to Mali”