‘We Wanted To Call The Police’: Maltese Man Conned Into Paying €700 For Scrunched Up Papers Sold As Cannabis
A Maltese man has opened up about being scammed into paying €700 for what turned out to be nothing more than a garbage bag filled with scrunched up papers – though he had been told it was cannabis.
The fraudulent sale shows the ease at which people in Malta can be scammed when purchasing products from the black market.
“A friend of mine was contacted by an old dealer who said he had some at a good price (€7 a gram). My friend tested it out and he thought is was quite good, especially for that price, so he spoke to me and told me about it and I said sure why not, it was a bargain,” the man told Lovin Malta on condition of anonymity.
After speaking to some friends, the group decided to pool their cash and buy 100 grams “as there was a huge discrepancy in prices when compared to normal market prices” and the deal was too good to pass by.
“He rushed us to do this deal, saying it was not available for long as it was a one time type of thing.”
“We rushed and we drove to him where we agreed we would meet. He then gave us the box (which had a stench of bad men’s perfume, allegedly to mask the smell of the grass) and we gave him the €700.”
Handed a brown box, the buyers wanted to be somewhere “safe and secure” to check the contents.
“We then came home, opened the box and found out that the contents of the box included no weed but scrunched up papers…”
Having previously bought from the dealer, the group thought the deal would be legitimate.
“He gave us this story that another person screwed him over and that he was the middleman in all of this, he called us and acted as if he was furious with this other person who screwed him over. Then, he went silent after 24 hours and did not reply to texts or answer phone calls.”
Though Malta legalised cannabis for personal use late last year, there still remains no clear option to purchase cannabis as it stands.
Down €700, the group wondered if there’s anyway they could speak to the police.
“We want to tell them: ‘hey listen, we tried to buy weed from this dealer but he screwed us over and gave us a box of papers’. You can imagine that in these situations there is not much one can do but learn a valuable lesson that some things which seem too good to be true are in fact just a gimmick.”
Have you ever experienced a situation like this before? Let us know in the comments below
READ NEXT: Pole Topples Onto Għaxaq Road As Gale Force Winds Batter The Island
