Basketball Scam to get foreign players to South Africa
Over the last couple of weeks, Mybasketball has received a number of enquiries from players from overseas wanting to know about the Professional League in South Africa. This article is mainly to give such players and anyone else affected by such a scam the real story.
HERE ARE THE FACTS:
- There is NO PROFESSIONAL League in South Africa and there hasn’t been one for years.
- The name Myles Delport is being used to give legitimacy to the scam
- Kwazulu Marlins name is also used to legitimize the whole saga.
- <kwazulumarlinsbasketballteam@gmail.com> (CONMAN EMAIL ADDRESS)
- topfameoverseabasketball7@gmail.com (CONMAN EMAIL ADDRESS)
- The name of Richard Marante keeps popping up in the Scam and I am unable to determine if he is legitimate or another victim in this scam.
First let’s look at how this scam is perpetrated. I have left the names and email addresses of the conman in the hope that if you get a similar email you will recognize them.Below is the email correspondence between a so called agent and one of the potential victims:
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: DaWaun Wells
Date: Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 11:39 AM
Subject: here is all the emails
To: <>
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While this was going on the bogus team got a hold of DaWaun and sent him this email:
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 18:20:29 +0100
Subject: Re: Player from Richard Marante
From: <kwazulumarlinsbasketballteam@gmail.com> (conman email address)
To: <>
Hello DaWaun Wells
I saw your online game video and resume, am impressed. I spoke with Mr. Richard Marante today and he told you are such a good player. The point now is that I told me we wont be giving out ticket to play for now, but we will reimburse back to them what ever expenses the make, reason is that we have made so much expenses on reconstruction the new basketball complex and we are more concern on completing the project.
we are sending out an attached form, were you need to fill every provisional details about you this will enable us file for all documents that will enable you enter south Africa.
After which we shall forward to your representative the team contract agreement to enable you and your agent Mr. Marante go through.
Thanks
Delport Myles
On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 11:02 PM, DaWaun Wells < > wrote:
Delport Myles,
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As part of the research to get to the bottom of this, I sent an email to Myles Delport, the real one and this is the response I got:
Hi Myles,
I got a message from a player in the US saying that he had been contacted by an agent saying that there was a pro team in KZN interested. They used your name in most communication and I wanted to know if this is a scam or not.
The particular player is also worried that this might be a scam and was busy doing some research on the matter.
Kind regards
Victor
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Hi Victor
The player in question did contact me and I told him it must be a scam as there is no pro team in KZN, some one is obviously using my name to legitimize the scam, they are getting their information from Afribasket I think. Please assure the player that it is most definitely a scam.
Regards
Myles
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show details Aug 19 |
I told him it was a scam, but this is the second or third email that I get regarding this.. It’s a concern ..
Do you want me to email me the emails that were sent between the various parties?
Hope you are well, are you still involved in basketball?
ciao,V
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show details Aug 19 |
Hi Victor
No don’t email me, perhaps just put up a warning on your web site if you don’t mind, I don’t know how else to combat it, some of my friends from the USA have also been emailed with the same questions.
I am still involved but at a low level as nothing seem to get off the ground here, but we are looking at trying to organize the schools down here and get our house in order.
Cheers
Myles
As you can see this is an elaborate Scam to try and lure these players to South Africa but to what end??? I hope that this helps clear up some of the questions we receive in a lot of the emails lately.
Article by Victor Shakineza with information received from DaWaun Wells and Myles Delport
hey, im a friend of dawaun and know about the whole story and this is becoming a serious issue. one of my other friends wrote me that he also received emails about playing in africa…they tried it the same way. a team is looking for a player, send me ur resume, then they are interested, but you have to pay your own flight ticket and they never tell you any name of the team! luckily my friend asked me about the whole situation and i could warn him about it because i knew about the scam.