They passed “Go” and collected way more than $200.
A gang of fraudsters has carried out three separate scams in England that all involve paying for watches, jewelry and diamonds with Monopoly money, the Bristol Post reports. In one scam, the article explains, a jeweler selling merchandise at a Bristol hotel agreed to sell $600,000 in diamonds to a customer, whereby the diamonds would be transferred from his nearby shop to the client upon receipt of payment. The client gave bundles of 100 euro notes to the jeweler, who used a cash-counting machine that didn’t detect any problems with the money. It’s speculated, however, that when the jeweler put the cash-counting machine away, the client somehow switched out the euros with Monopoly money, and the jeweler didn’t notice until after the diamonds had already been transferred from his shop to the swindlers.
"You can imagine the horror when he goes to check the cash,” David Hughes, the prosecuting attorney for the jeweler, told the Bristol Post. "It is immediately apparent it is not the same that he had counted in the hotel. It’s counterfeit. At some point during that fatal turnaround to put that cash-counting machine away, the real money has been switched, the fake money has been substituted and the criminals had disappeared with the diamonds."
At least three men have admitted to helping execute the crime, the article adds, while another has been accused but denies involvement.
Read more at the Bristol Post