Export Business Scam

Recently, I made a deal with a company entitled Green Ressource Sarl from Cotonou, Benin whose manager is Mohammed Salex. I have found him on a online B2B website. He showed me images and videos of good quality product (wood charcoal) at a reasonable price. We agreed for a trial order of 21 tons in one 40'-HC container in CIF term to be shipped on early days of March.

I transferred the advance payment to his agent named Jean Eudes Apklogan in Lome, Togo. Very soon (the next day!) he loaded the container with the product in Benin and after sealing sent it to a shipping yard in Lome, Togo. My only inspection was the images and videos he sent the next day. He skipped the inspection party and I was worried about the content and there was nothing I could do about it since he didn't accept to remove the seal.

Few days later he sent me a draft bill of lading and requested for fast payment. I made a mistake and after our custom agent confirmed the draft BL, before the issue of original documents I transferred the money to his name Mohammed Salex, Cotonou, Benin.

The scam got obvious from the point that he wasn't going to pay for the shipping freight. The ocean freight got set as prepaid and then he started to ask for more money. At first, he asked for his remaining 1000 USD which I supposed to transfer to him after arrival of the cargo. Eventually, I transferred the 1000 USD on march 25th to help him do his job. Later that day after the invoice was issued to him, he came up with a new excuse that the freight rate is not what he expected and he doesn't have enough money to pay the freight. Three days later, while I was hopeless, I accepted his new scam and sent him 500 USD to finalize the shipment. At that point, I thought he is after more money. I didn't care about the profit and I just wanted to avoid the full loss, lawsuit expenses, and other matters concerning my partner. It is shameful for me to write that the next day he made a new trash story and asked for another extra 300 USD. After that, he told me to don't call or message unless I am ready to pay the requested extra money. That was the point that I finally finally! refused to pay him more and now I am trying to use my partner influences to stop him.

It is a shame that when I was not 100% sure about this trade, I tried to do that and be the first Persian trader importing products from Benin. Now I get that why nobody risks to deal with the traders from Benin or its neighboring countries. In general, I heard that these traders which are mostly scammers make trouble mostly to European traders. That is not because they are very smart, that is just because of their way of thinking and acting. One can say that why they just look after the scamming money and don't wait few months to earn more profit in a rightful way by continuing the trade after the trial order. I am very sorry if it sounds racist, that is unfortunately related to their life style, culture, their ideology, and wrong thinking. It is hard to understand why someone should ruin a big export business only for 8000 USD, while he could make more by just the next order.