Over the past five years, thousands of visitors to Dubai have fallen victim to the black seed powder and oil scams. Those who were scammed have handed over amounts ranging from about 400 dirhams (US$100) to more than 20,000 dirhams (about US$5,500). A few of those scammed have managed to recover some or all of their money, but most haven’t.

I first became aware of the black seed powder and oil scams on Christmas Day 2021 when I was staying in Dubai at a hotel on Al Muraqqabat Road in Deira. I had returned from a walk along Dubai Creek and was sitting in the hotel coffee shop with my laptop writing an article about Deira. A couple in their 60s from India walked in and sat at the table next to me.

The wife immediately started berating her husband in Hindi whilst tapping her finger on a small plastic jar containing a black powder, which her husband had placed on the table. They started arguing, all the time focusing their attention on the plastic jar of black powder, and their voices became raised. 

I looked across at them, partly out of curiosity and partly because they were disturbing my concentration, and the wife saw me looking. She turned towards me, and I was half expecting her to tell me to mind my own business, but instead she started to tell me in English how stupid her husband was for getting scammed out of more than 2,000 dirhams.

Her husband immediately responded saying she could not be sure he had been scammed, and then pointed to the jar of black powder and said (looking at his wife): “How do you know this won’t work?” His wife laughed at him, telling him what a fool he was. She turned to me again and said: “He is supposed to be a businessman, but he falls for a scam like this”.

To understand what went next, I need to jump ahead and first explain what had happened to the husband earlier in the day. I learned those details only after the wife had settled down a little, and the husband had time to talk. Let’s call the couple Rajiv and Sonia. That’s not their real names (the reason for that I will explain later).

Rajiv and Sonia had gone to the textile market at Bur Dubai to look for fabrics for saris. They also wanted to buy a local SIM card for the two weeks that they were staying in Dubai. They had found a shop selling SIM cards near the textile market but were told they could only sell to locals. SIM cards for tourists had to be purchased from Etisalat. 

They were directed to an Etisalat outlet in the nearby Shindagha City Center mall. Rajiv decided to walk to the mall to get the SIM card whilst Sonia continued to browse fabrics in the textile shops. The distance was only about 500 metres. About halfway to the mall he was approached by a young man as he was about to cross a pedestrian crossing on Al Nahdha Street.

The young man said his name was Ali, and commented on Rajiv‘s pot belly. He said his father had suffered the same problem and produced two photographs showing an older man, with and without a pot belly. Ali said his father had got rid of his pot belly in just 20 days by taking black seed powder mixed with something else that Rajiv didn’t catch the name of.

Rajiv initially tried to brush him off, but Ali persisted as he walked across the pedestrian crossing, saying the black seed powder only cost 15 dirhams. There was a supermarket a few steps away, and Ali said: “Come, look I show you”, and walked through the door of the supermarket. Rajiv followed him in because he said he felt safe in a supermarket, and by now his interest was piqued.

Ali picked up a small plastic jar that was labelled Black Seed Powder and took it to the cashier. Ali asked the cashier if they had some other ingredient (the one Rajiv didn’t catch the name of). The cashier said no, so Ali said to Rajiv: “Not to worry, I know another shop around the corner that probably has it”. 

Ali then pulled out a 20 dirham note to pay for the black seed powder, saying to Rajiv: “When this works in 20 days, you pray for me, okay?” Rajiv told Ali there was no need for him to buy it, so he handed over 20 dirhams to the cashier and she gave him five dirhams change. The cost of the supermarket purchase was 15 dirhams (about $US4).

Rajiv then followed Ali around the corner to a herbal medicine shop. As they walked to the shop Ali was explaining that the contents of the jar would be good for 30 days. Rajiv would need to take a teaspoonful with water before bed every night, but he would start to see the results in 20 days.

When they reached the herbal medicine shop, Ali asked the shop keeper whether they had any ‘eryat powder’. He said yes, and Ali asked how much. The shop keeper said it was 25 dirhams. The shop keeper measured out 15 half-teaspoonful sized piles on a piece of paper whilst Ali explained this was because each dose was good for two days, so he didn’t need as much quantity as the black seed powder.

“We buy, yes?” Ali asked. Rajiv said okay, and the shop keeper tipped the ‘eryat powder’ into the black seed powder jar, and Ali gave it a good shake. The shop keeper then said that will be 375 dirhams. Rajiv said: “I thought you said it was only 25 dirhams.”. Ali responded: “Yes, 25 dirhams a dose. You need 15 doses”. Rajiv grumbled but paid up.

Ali then asked if the shop keeper had any ‘kusturi powder’. Of course, the shop keeper said yes, and proceeded to measure out 15 doses on the piece of paper. Rajiv asked the price. The shop keeper said 45 dirhams. Rajiv replied: “You mean fifteen times 45 dirhams? Oh no, that’s too much”. But Ali persisted explaining that the concoction needed three ingredients to work and showed him again the photos of his ‘father’.

“I guarantee this will work and you will be so happy in 20 days that you will want to throw me a party”. He pulled out a piece of paper and wrote his name and telephone number on it, telling Rajiv to call him in 20 days or as soon as he sees his pot belly disappearing. “I am helping you because you remind me of my dear father who was so happy when his belly was gone”.

Rajiv wasn’t convinced but he felt he would give anything a try to get rid of his pot belly, so he said yes, and the powder was mixed into the black seed powder as before. He handed over another 675 dirhams. Then another sheet of paper with 15 doses of a powder was produced from behind the counter. He was told this was the final ingredient, ‘white rebuis powder’. Rajiv said no, he didn’t want any more powders added. 

“You told me it needed three ingredients to work. That’s already three”, Rajiv said to Ali. “Yes, three ingredients that have to be added into the black seed powder. It won’t work without all three ingredients”, Ali replied. Rajiv asked how much the final ingredient was and was told it was 80 dirhams a dose. 

At this point Rajiv felt he was being scammed and said he wanted his money back. The shop keeper said that wasn’t possible because the powders had already been mixed into the black seed powder. Ali then started his high-pressure sales pitch all over again assuring Rajiv that the mixture would work.

Rajiv told me later that he doesn’t really know why he gave in at that point, but he was feeling nervous because there were some other men in the shop whose presence he had not noticed before. He said he was getting angry at himself that he had allowed himself to be scammed but was still holding out some hope at the back of his mind that the concoction might work.

The final powder was mixed. He handed over 1,200 dirhams and left with his plastic jar of black seed powder – 2,250 dirhams out of pocket. “I paid the last amount because at that stage I was getting scared for my safety with all those other men in the shop’, he told me.

Incredibly, that wasn’t the final attempt that Ali and the shop keeper made to extort more money out of Rajiv. After paying his third instalment of 1,200 dirhams, the shop keeper produced a vial of gold dust telling Rajiv that adding gold dust to the black seed powder mixture would improve its effectiveness by 70 percent.

The gold dust was 1,300 dirhams a dose which would have made the total cost for anyone falling for the top level of the scam a massive 21,750 dirhams (nearly US$6,000). You may think that nobody would fall for that, but my research on the web later revealed several people reporting that they had been scammed for over 20,000 dirhams.

Now back to my conversation with Rajiv and Sonia in the hotel coffee shop. Whilst Sonia was continuing to berate Rajiv, albeit in a lower tone of voice, Rajiv was still holding out some hope that his black seed powder concoction might work.

“You are not going to eat that not knowing what is in it”, Sonia barked at him. “Those powders might be drugs, or they might kill you”. Fortunately, Rajiv had asked the shop keeper to write down the name of the so-called herbal powders on the piece of paper on which Ali had written his telephone number. 

And that’s where I started getting involved in Rajiv’s plight. I had my laptop with me so I offered to look up the names of the powders on the web to help them understand whether any of the powders were beneficial and to see if I could offer Rajiv any hope that the concoction might work. 

The first powder was ‘eryat powder’. There was nothing on the web about a herbal ingredient of that name. I tried some different spellings, but there nothing I could see that resembled a powder of that name. I drew a complete blank on that one, which wasn’t encouraging for Rajiv.

The second one – ‘kusturi powder’ – also drew a blank with that spelling, but I suggested it could be kasturi powder, a type of turmeric. But kasturi turmeric is only used to make pastes for skin care. Every website I could find about kasturi powder said it should not be taken internally.

The third one – ‘white rebuis powder’ – similarly drew a blank, and there was nothing I could find with alternative spellings that would explain what it could have been. I turned to Rajiv and said: “I’m sorry, I have to agree with your wife (at that stage we hadn’t introduced ourselves by name), there’s no way you should be consuming that concoction. The only thing we know in it that is safe to consume is the black seed powder”.

Of course, it was possible that the shop keeper had added harmless inert powders, but they had no way of knowing that. Black seed powder itself, according to the WebMD website, is beneficial because it has been “proven to reduce inflammation and relax smooth muscles, easing the symptoms of people with asthma in clinical studies. Combined with its antioxidant properties, these effects help prevent gastrointestinal disorders and relieve related symptoms”.

The black seeds are harvested from an annual plant called Nigella sativa and are used in Indian and Middle Eastern cooking. It’s also known as black cumin and black caraway. The powder and the oil that can be extracted from the seeds are also sold in health shops as a herbal supplement. In grocery shops the price is low as Rajiv found out. In health shops it might be sold in more fancy containers and marked up in price, but certainly not to the price that Rajiv had paid!

When I was searching for information on the health benefits of black seed powder, I noticed at the bottom of the Google search results page under ‘Related searches’ the phrase “black seed powder scam in Dubai”. I clicked on that and said “whoa” out loud when I discovered several pages from travel forums describing the scam in similar terms to what Rajiv had experienced.

Apparently, the black seed powder scam has been going on in Dubai for some years, primarily around Deira where we were staying, and Bur Dubai where Rajiv got scammed. The scammers are known as ‘Adri Gar’ and usually target men with big bellies or men who are bald or losing their hair. In the latter case, they recommend black seed oil with three herbs added known as ‘akseer’, ‘marjan’ and ‘nukra’. None of those so-called herbs exist.

The black seed hair oil scam has been prevalent in Dubai since at least 2016 when the Gulf News reported that tourists with hair loss were being targeted. One Indian tourist who had been scammed told the paper: “People who have less hair always wish they had more. These people are playing with our feelings.”

The scammers target primarily older tourists with obvious health problems. Often, they will ask the ‘target’ if they are suffering from diabetes, and the black seed powder is offered as a cure for that. Tourists with gout are another target. In fact, if there is any health problem they can identify, the black seed powder or black seed oil with their respective powder additives are offered as the cure.

Younger travellers with acne are also targeted, as are tourists wearing glasses. The scammers claim the black seed powder will cure short-sightedness enabling people to throw away their glasses after 20 days.

The travel forums did not hold out much hope for Rajiv to get his money back. In most cases when people went to the police, they were told there was nothing they could do because the tourist had agreed to the purchases. Their only recourse was to file a complaint with Dubai’s Department of Economy and Tourism. But the department would only accept complaints if a receipt could be produced. In almost all cases, the shops didn’t issue receipts.

A few people recovered their money by going back to the shop and threatening to call the police. In some cases that had worked, in others it hadn’t. In a few cases people were threatened with violence, but I could see no reports of anyone being physically attacked. That was a relief to learn so I said to Rajiv that we should go back to the shop the next day and demand his money back, now that we knew it was a scam.

At that point Sonia wanted to know why I wanted to get involved. Maybe she thought I was a scammer too! I explained that I edited an online magazine for older travellers in Asia, and I’d like to see how this played out in person so I could write an article warning other travellers about the scam. I gave them my business card and showed them xyzAsia on my laptop, and that allayed Sonia’s concerns. They then introduced themselves to me by name and we arranged to meet after breakfast the next day.

The next day Rajiv and I set off in a taxi to Bur Dubai. Overnight Rajiv had persuaded Sonia not to come “for her safety”. In the taxi he told me more detail about what had happened the previous day. He said he would ask for 2,000 of his money back because he thought if the shop keeper was still left with 250 dirhams, which would probably cover the cost of whatever he put in the black seed powder, he might be more willing to negotiate.

We exited the taxi near the textile market and Rajiv retraced his steps to where he was accosted by the tout. I took a photograph of the supermarket where he had bought the black seed powder, and from there we walked around the corner to the herbal medicine shop.

We found the shop easily enough but standing outside was man talking on a mobile phone. He looked well-built with strong muscles. Rajiv said to me: “I don’t remember seeing him yesterday, but maybe he’s some sort of spotter. I don’t feel comfortable going in with him there”.

The man wasn’t looking in our direction, so I took a quick photo of the shop from an angle, and then we withdrew. I told Rajiv that I thought we needed some ‘protection’ going in there and suggested that we go to a police station and ask if they knew of a security company where we could hire a security guard for an hour to come with us. I wondered aloud whether even an off-duty policeman might be willing to do it if we offered him a couple of hundred dirhams.

Rajiv thought that was a good idea, so we set off to find a police station. Upon arrival at the police station, we spoke to a guard in the reception area, and after explaining what we wanted, he directed us to the duty officer. The station didn’t appear to be particularly busy, and we waited less than ten minutes to see the duty officer.

When the duty officer asked us what the problem was, Rajiv pulled out the jar of black seed powder and started to explain what had happened yesterday. Before Rajiv had got a couple of sentences out, the duty officer raised his hand and said: “What was the total you paid?”

He obviously knew about the scam and didn’t need to hear all the details. Rajiv told him he had paid 2,250 dirhams. The duty officer simply said: “I will send an officer with you to get your money back” and walked out of the room.

After the duty officer had left, I turned to Rajiv and said: “Wow, I didn’t expect this. Nearly everyone I read about on the travel forums got brushed off by the police. I wonder why they are helping us?” But the duty officer didn’t come back with another officer. He came back with a plain clothes detective who asked us to go to the CID offices at the back of the station.

There, the detective questioned Rajiv about what had happened, Rajiv gave him a card from the shop and the piece of paper that Ali had handed him. I showed the detective my photo of the shop, and at that point I noticed that the name of the shopfront was different to the name on the card that Rajiv had. 

The detective tried to ring Ali’s number, but as expected, the number was not connected. He then called the number of the shop and surprisingly it was answered. After speaking to the person on the other end in Arabic for a few minutes, he hung up and said: “I’ve told the shop owner to come to the station”.

About 15 minutes later, the shop keeper walked in through the back door of the CID. He didn’t go through the main entrance of the police station. He’d obviously been there before. Rajiv whispered to me: “That’s the guy”. The shop keeper walked over to the detective who didn’t say anything but cocked his head in Rajiv’s direction. The shop keeper looked at Rajiv and turned back to the detective and nodded his head.

The detective then said to Rajiv: “How much do you want back?” Rajiv replied: “Two thousand.” The detective said a few words in Arabic to the shop keeper who then turned and walked out the door. The detective said to Rajiv: “He’s gone to get your money.” Half an hour later the shop keeper returned, handed the money to Rajiv without saying a word, and walked out.

The detective said: “Wait here a little while and then you can leave through the main entrance”. Rajiv thanked the detective profusely for getting his money back, but I wanted to know why they were letting the shop keeper get away with his scam without any penalty. “Why do you let these guys stay in business if you know they are scamming tourists all the time,” I asked. 

The detective didn’t give me a straight answer. He said only: “Just stay away from those places – they cheat everyone. And never let anyone engage you on the street. Nobody in Dubai is going to stop you on the street to help you. They are only going to scam you”. Of course, that latter advice is good advice for tourists anywhere, not just Dubai.

We left the police station through the main entrance. As we got outside, I said to Rajiv: “That was all too easy. Let’s wait in front of the police station until an empty taxi comes by. I don’t feel comfortable walking down the street in case any of those guys are waiting in an alley to grab the money back from you”. Rajiv agreed with that, so we didn’t move from the front of the police station until an empty taxi appeared, which fortunately only took about ten minutes.

On the way back to the hotel I commented to Rajiv that he should have asked for the whole 2,250 back. He agreed but said everything was happening so quickly and he had the figure of 2,000 in his mind as being what he was going to ask the shop keeper for if we had gone to the shop. “I’m so happy to get the 2,000 back. I’m not concerned about the other 250”, he said.

That night Rajiv and Sonia took me out to dinner at a nearby 5-star restaurant serving Iraqi food as a ‘reward’ for helping them. They also insisted that I come and stay with them next time I was in India. Over dinner Rajiv asked me not to use his real name in this article because he was embarrassed about his pot belly and he didn’t want any of his friends to know he had been scammed if ever they read the article.

Rajiv also asked me not to identify the police station that we went to because he thought the detective might have been a bit closer to his scammer than he was letting on, and he didn’t want to get him into trouble if his superior officer ever read my article. “He was such a nice guy and I will be forever grateful to him for getting my money back”, Rajiv said.

However, I told Rajiv that I would be writing to the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism to ask why they are not doing anything to shut down those businesses that are scamming tourists. He was fine with that. If and when the department replies, I will update this article with their response.

My web research also revealed that the scams have been copied in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman and Pakistan, but the prevalence of the scams in those countries is nowhere near as high as in the UAE. Dubai and Abu Dhabi are the main cities where the scams are taking place. Travellers to those destinations should take the advice of the Dubai Police and never respond to an approach from a stranger on the street.

Header image: © Halil Ibrahim Mescioglu. All other images: © David Astley