By Olimatou Coker
A growing number of Gambian travellers from the Senegalese side of the border in need of the Dalasi at Karang have reported incidents of cheating by the foreign exchange dealers.
Fatou Chareh said she has been victimized by the scammers three times when they cheated her of a lot money when she needed to change CFA to dalasis.
“The latest incident was just a day before yesterday when I was coming from Senegal in the early hours of Saturday morning. I wasn’t having enough dalasis and decided to exchange CFA to dalasis at Karang not realizing that the scammers given me a lot less than the equivalent. This is a common practice there and our people should be very careful when changing money. The worst thing is that even if you discover it and report it to the police there, they would not help you. They would say that is not their work,” she said.
Binta Camara, a business lady, said she was seriously scammed last year Koriteh when she was going on her business trip to Senegal.
“I lost over D30,000 as I was in a hurry to get my customers fabrics for the Eid and couldn’t change my money before leaving Banjul, so I decided to change it from one of the women at the border. I was cheated so much that by the time I realised, it was pointless for me to continue my business trip,” Binta said.
Musa Sowe, another victim, said he too had similar experiences with money dealers there.
Sowe urged the Senegalese government to intervene by building an official bureau de change on their part of the border or allow investors to do so, for the black-market scammers to be redundant.
