A brazen con was exposed prior to this year's Lunar New Year holiday, after a quick-thinking government official unmasked two men posing as Nigerian diplomats, consular officials confirmed recently.
However, the perpetrators man-aged to escape, and it is still not clear who they were or what their objective was, the officials said.
Two men claiming to be diplomats from Nigeria paid a visit to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' (MOFA) Bureau of Consular Affairs, asking for a detailed briefing on Taiwan's immigration procedures.
The men -- who appeared to be of African descent -- entered at the height of the Lunar New Year season, when MOFA officials are at their busiest and requested a meeting with its director, Chien Kang-tan (
Their stated purpose was to facilitate cooperation between Tai-wan and Nigeria to combat these crimes.
But as eloquent as the two fraudsters were, the official who met them sensed that something was not quite right.
While checking on their credentials, he discovered that there was no immigration record for two Nigerians with the names used on the business cards the men presented. The MOFA officials were in the process of contacting the police when the two men made a quick exit.
Although the identity and nationality of the two men is unknown, MOFA officials said that judging from their accents and appearance, they suspected the two were from English-speaking African countries.
Some commentators said that the scam reveals that even as President Chen Shui-bian (
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