The Black Money Decoy
Posted on: October 14, 2016 /
The installation and performance ‘The Black Money Decoy’ replicates several semi professional laboratory settings that are used for the cleaning process of defaced money. In an internet scam spread through spam e-mails and supported by fraudulent online shops, money has supposedly been dyed black to avoid taxation and custom fees when safely transporting large amount of cash out of conflict zones such as Afghanistan, Syria or Iraq. The lab setting is based on a research in progress of several websites and e-mails that promote and sell needed equipment such as solutions, powders and oxidants used in the cleaning process. The hocus-pocus chemicals come along with youtube tutorials of how the money is cleaned, both the aesthetics and the script from several of these videos are combined and re-enacted in two video performances. In addition to this, the installation includes a money trunk and forms such as; “Anti-drug trade form”, “UN – ANTI TERRORIST CERTIFICATE” or “Money Laundering / Drug free clearance certificates”, which are made up bureaucracies the scammer can cash on. The exhibited photographs were digitally watermarked, licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0 and spread amongst online criminals in order to reverse engineer the scam practice and to track and report the appearance of online shops used for this scam.
A research in progress presentation was done during the “long night of the museums” (Oct, 1, 2016) at Freies Theater Innsbruck/Austria.
Reverse engineering performance
Detail shots from the performance
Keywords that are used in this scam
S.S.D. Automatic Solution, SUPER AUTOMATIC SOLUTION, TEBI-MANETIC SOLUTION, Tourmaline solution, Ttz Universal Solution, SOLUTION PK 58, Topix solution, Castro X Oxide solution, Ks Solution, Synthetic Surfactant Detergent Solution, Activation Powder, tomaline powder, PRACIENT POWDER, Consective powder, Mercury powder, Castro-Oxidant, A5.,Vectrol Paste 003, Tebi-Matonic, Zuta S4, Ogl Magic, SSD Automatic, SSD Supreme, ,SSD Ultimate, SSD Universal, RED LIQUID MERCURY 99.9%, SILVER LIQUID MERCURY, VIRGIN MERCURY, NON VOLATILE MERCURY, Anti-drugtrade form, UN – ANTI TERRORIST CERTIFICATE or Money Laundering / Drug free clearance certificates.
