The Other Side of Single:
Fine line between welcoming guests and laundering money

By Dana Greene
Special to The Jewish State

One of the things about travel is that it broadens your understanding of people from other cultures. So there we were, on the famous Orchard Road, buying an area rug from a Pakistani in Singapore. Next thing I knew he was being invited to our home on the off chance that he might someday visit the US. Honestly, what were the chances of that happening?

Three months later, Kamran was knocking at my door. He had another man with him, Monem, his older brother, maybe.

Shocked that they were actually standing in my front yard, what could I do? I invited them in. They had just flown in to LAX from a cross-country trip starting in New York, and Mohammed, their Los Angeles connection, picked them up and drove them south on the 405 straight to San Diego.

They instantly pulled out gifts. A two-foot prayer rug, two bottles of whisky, and two tacky metal ashtrays plated with Singapore and the city's symbol, the Merlion. We don't smoke, but I graciously accepted their gifts. And I offered them tea.

An hour or so later, Robert came home and we started talking business. They wanted to have a carpet exhibition in San Diego, and they wanted us to organize it. They had planned to sell their Persian carpets on the East Coast, but the carpets had taken too long to arrive from Singapore, and when they did, there was an even bigger problem -- they had been mugged.

They weren't too descriptive, but they said that they'd been robbed by two big inner-city thugs while staying in Pittsburgh. And they had no money. Oh yes, they quietly asked my Robert if he'd loan them $2,000 to get them through until they arrived back home in Singapore.

This was surreal. The minute the Pakistani Singaporeans asked for cash, it seemed our cultural experience was based on a lie. We read about scams like this on the Internet or had heard about things like this happening to naïve, inexperienced travelers. But we were neither, or so we thought. Who did these guys think we were?

Over dessert, we told them we'd be happy to host a carpet show and invite our friends, but that we had no intention of loaning them money. They would need to have cash wired from Singapore.

The next morning Kamran and Monem walked over to the local Postal Annex and inquired about wiring money from overseas. They reported back that they would need access to our bank account to have the money wired directly. "I don't think so," I said calmly. "Just tell your wife to send you the money from a Singaporean bank."

"She's not educated," Kamran explained, "and she doesn't know about these things."

To make matters worse, the carpets were to be delivered in a few days, and a cash payment was needed. Our family would be visiting from out of town and our Pakistani Singaporeans would need to pay for a few nights stay at a local motel. They needed cash, and quickly!

Finally, they had another so-called brother from Indonesia wire them money, but they wanted to use my name as the receiver. Why Indonesia? I'm still not sure.

My husband was not pleased and insisted I was being involved in money laundering. Hesitantly, I agreed to do this only when they broke down in tears. But what were we supposed to do? If their story was true, we'd be leaving them stranded. I couldn't do that.

I remembered my upbringing. Abraham's tent was opened on all four sides welcoming travelers. "It's one of the greatest mitzvot for Jews to do," said Conservative Rabbi Len Rosenthal of San Diego's Tifereth Israel Synagogue. "We're supposed to extend ourselves to strangers."

The Torah is even more explicit about welcoming guests. "You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt" (Exodus 22:20).

Tzedakah tahtzeel memavet -- the belief that charity saves the poor from death -- is but one reason why hachnasat orchim, the welcoming of guests, is so important. It is more important than study or worship of God because, for a Jew, this mitzvah has always been the pre-eminent benchmark for decent behavior.

So against my husband's wishes, I decided to pick up the cash. There we were counting one hundred dollar bills at a Western Union pick up site in a Rite Aid drugstore downtown. Negative thoughts crossed my mind. Do nice Jewish girls get involved in this stuff? What if this is a set up? If this is a real scam, $2,000 doesn't seem like a lot of money. Would the CIA be knocking at my door?

We collected the cash and walked down the street to the motel where our Pakistani Singaporeans were staying. They wanted to hold business upstairs in their room. I kindly suggested they count the cash in the public lobby.

And it was a done deal. They had their money. They could now pay the trucking fee carrying the anticipated carpets, their hotel bill and still have enough to take a train back to LAX to catch their flight home.

The next day, the carpets were to be delivered to our home for the exhibition. I was in the process of inviting groups of potential rug buyers when suddenly the phone rang. Our carpet dealers called to say they changed their plans and were heading back to Singapore early. They told us they had instructed the truck carrying the carpets to mail the shipment home rather than detour to San Diego.

No carpet show! I was disappointed that we didn't get to have the cultural experience we thought we'd have. Robert was thrilled they were gone. And we both sighed. It had been a trying, unexpected time in our newlywed life.

There was a certain amount of fear about Pakistanis and terrorism, money laundering, and the unlikelihood of them actually being mugged in Pittsburgh. Also, the strangeness of the funds being wired from Indonesia bothered us. Why Indonesia? While my mom suggested hiding the silver we'd just received for our wedding, my husband was overwrought with paranoia regarding possible Al Qaeda connections.

And we still don't have any answers. However, we did get an email that our Pakistani Singaporeans arrived home safely, thanking us for our hospitality and inviting us back to Singapore.

Perhaps we didn't set back international relations that much after all.

Dana Greene is an award-winning nationally syndicated columnist based in San Diego. She writes about relationships. You can reach her via email at danagreene1@yahoo.com.