How can a performer make money in Magic today? Sure, there's birthday
parties; lectures; selling magic tricks; or even writing books about how to do
birthday parties, give lectures, and sell tricks.
But as audiences often correctly assert, a real magician should be able to
make money appear magically.
Two stories from Dallas (Texas) on their local CBS affiliate offer
alternative uses for our skills in sleight of hand and deceptive patter.
Dallas Assistant District Attorney Toby Shook told
KTVT a new scam is taking the area by storm and its victims by the
wallet.
The scammers are presumably not bona fide magicians but use magic principles
to sell customers magic black paper.
"(They say) they're from Africa and have American money that was
dyed black for the purpose of smuggling it into the country and they need the
victim's assistance getting the dye off this money.
"One method of the scam is to talk victims into giving real $100 bills that
they can place in dyed money, put into a package, put special chemicals on it
and pressurize it for some time and can return later, the dye will be removed
and they can split the money.
"To lure them in, they'll do an actual demonstration using a couple of pieces
of black paper sprinkled with foot powder. With a slight of hand, the produce a
couple hundred dollar bills, kind of like a magic trick.
"Once the victim is convinced the process works and is promised a share of
the money, the scam artists ask for $10,000- $20,000. Then they take off with
the cash.
Wow. It just seems wrong, doesn't it. How many birthday parties or balloon
twisting marathons would you need to perform to steal $10,000.00 – $20,000.00
from your clients? In fact, we don't even have the two $100.00 bills used as
bait.
Victims were understandably angry but reluctant to report the crime because
they were embarrassed to admit falling for scam. Some were concerned they too
would be suspects because the crime allegedly "involved smuggling money."
Wow again. Let's break down this logic for a second. No one wants to be seen
as a gullible sucker willing to toss away $10,000.00 to $20,000.00 to a stranger
promising foot powder and pressure can make money appear from black paper.
We don't even like to admit we buy foot powder — much less that we need or
even use it.
But assume you get past the embarrassment of being a dupe. Why not report the
crime to the authorities? Chances are if the scam artist was fibbing about the
magic power of foot powder to produce money from black paper, he may also have
lied when he said the scheme involved "smuggling money."
We checked with the U.S. Department of the
Treasury on this. They were very helpful and told us two things.
First: They are officially known as "The United States Department of
the Treasury" and not "The United States Treasury Department," "Treasury
Department," or "The U.S. Department of Treasury."
The clerk we spoke with advised if we needed a reference to remember the
correct name, we should look at a dollar bill.
We asked him if he could send us a copy of one because we just spent our last
$2.35 to buy the phone card needed to call him.
He gave us a web site address with more information
about the Department's name and seal before he hung up on us.
He was likely concerned for our finances and didn't want to use up all of the
credits on the phone card.
Second: Before the clerk corrected our nomenclature, he said there is no
crime in the Federal Code against smuggling black paper or any kind of paper as
long as the total weight of the paper is less than that which would cost more
than $10,000.00 on the retail market for paper.
We asked, what if the paper was special paper that could be turned into real
money with the sprinkle of foot powder.
It doesn't matter to Treasury.
Special paper or not, you can smuggle it like a crazy person as long as you
do not exceed the monetary reporting requirements ($10,000 in cash or cash
equivalent) or import duty.
But still, the odds are pretty good that someone who lies about the magic
qualities of foot powder is probably also lying about the source of "special
black paper."
We were going to call the clerk back to ask about the legality of The Magic Money Maker we bought
from an S.S. Adams Novelties and Tricks rack at a truck stop.
One person did report the crime, however. "Authorities were tipped off by a
man who became suspicious when the scam artist tried to buy $3 million worth of
rugs, but said her first needed help converting the black-dyed money into U.S.
currency."
Police have arrested one man, identified as Joseph Osang, who's accused of
forgery and tampering with government documents.
The second magic-related scam story from
Dallas this morning involved a Magic Pill. Drop one of the special pills in
your gas tank and your mileage would improve dramatically.
The Texas Attorney General shut down the company, Bio Performance, and
accused the company of selling "fake gas pills."
We checked with our new friend at the United States Department of the
Treasury and asked if it was legal to sell "fake gas pills."
He said "fake gas pills" were not within the jurisdiction of his agency.
Depending on what was meant by "fake gas pills," he said we should contact
either The Food and Drug Administration, The Department of Energy, or The
Department of Agriculture.
Our phone card ran out before we could ask the correct title for each of
these agencies so we've given it our best guess.
The Attorney General brought in scientists to prove the "fake gas pills" were
comprised of 70 percent napthalene… the
same ingredient used to make moth balls."
Before you rush to your closet to grab some moth balls to plunk into your gas
tank, you should know that those same scientists testified "there is no way the
product could improve gas mileage."
"This company operated an illegal pyramid scheme. They defrauded, by their
own accounting, over 50,000 people in the United States," said Paco Felici,
Texas Attorney General spokesperson.
Several distributors and customers showed up to court in support of the
company. They believe the product works and are disappointed by the
decision.
"It was like $1.5 million, then it jumped up to over $2.5 million in
February. In March it was like $4 million. We are just growing like crazy, the
sales were astronomical because the product works," said Marion Thompson, Bio
Performance distributor.
The case will go to trial September 18th.
We have ordered reams of black paper and booked a flight this evening for
Dallas. We're hoping to meet with those "magic gas pill" distributors with a new
money-making alternative.
We had to put the whole thing on our credit card but we're sure we'll recover
our investment in the first hour after getting to the court house.
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