Dog's literary agent, Alan Nevis at Renaissance Talent, shares that he and the reality TV star finds several things about the $430,000 check, which is sent to his office by FedEx, fishy.
- Aug 8, 2019
AceShowbiz - Dog the Bounty Hunter a.k.a. Duane Chapman is targeted in $430K celebrity ripoff. The reality TV star was reportedly offered $430,000 to fly to Dubai for a speech, but it turns out to be a total scam. TMZ was the first to report.
According to his literary agent, Alan Nevis at Renaissance Talent, the check was sent to his office by FedEx on Wednesday morning, August 7. It didn't took a long time for him to get suspicious of the whole deal.
Nevis shared that the sweet offer started last month when he received an email, seemingly from Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan -- the real Deputy Prime Minister of United Arab Emirates, who told him his desire to have Dog speaking at an economic empowerment convention for small business owners on August 31.
Dog's team noted that the contract they sent looked very professional so they didn't find anything sketchy. In addition, the website for the alleged event, mansourfoundation.org, also looked like a real website that allowed you to make donations.
However, Nevis said that things got suspicious when he realized that all communication was by email. However, the foundation claimed that couldn't be helped considering there was 11-hour time difference between L.A. to UAE. Nevis felt the biggest red flag when the foundation told him they'd had trouble wiring funds to the bank where he has his business account, so they asked for his personal account at a different bank.
Thinking it was fishy, both Nevis and Dog decided to walk away but then the check arrived and the number featured was much more than the agreed upon fee. The catch was that the foundation asked Dog to donate $250K of the fee back to the organization.
Surely Dog's team didn't wire the money right away. Nevis allegedly did some research by calling the Portland bank that issued the check as well as Benson Industries, the Portland construction company, that wrote it. The bank confirmed that it was an active account, while Benson refused to say for whom the account was.
According to federal and local law enforment sources, this scam is like the new Nigerian Prince letter. Should Dog sent back the requested $250K, it would have been from his own money.
