TRENTON — Two men were indicted today for attempting to steal more than $75,000 from someone by falsely promising to provide returns of several times that amount, the state Attorney General's Office said.

Nyondah Blay, also know as John Blay, 38, of Trenton, and Carl Jenkins, 36, of Philadelphia, allegedly told an unidentified victim that they possessed hundreds of thousands of U.S. dollars that were dyed black in order to be smuggled out of Liberia.

Blay and Jenkins asked the victim to supply several thousand dollars to buy certain expensive chemicals that were needed to extract the dye from the money and return it to its normal form, the office said in a news release.

In return, authorities said, the men promised to return the money and more to the victim. But the scheme was broken up Feb. 1 in Cherry Hill, when a sting operation caught the men accepting several thousand dollars from the victim, the office said.

In similar "black money scams," the perpetrators accept the up-front money and then disappear, leaving the victims with stacks of worthless paper.

Blay and Jenkins were charged with conspiracy and theft by deception, charges that carry a maximum 10 years in state prison. The sting operation was conducted jointly by the state Division of Criminal Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

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