The Dangerous Nigerian Scam Letters

Tuesday, 07 February 2006

Nigerian Scam Letters have been around from decades, well before the internet was born. At that time, they were sent around as normal paper letters by regular postal services. With the birth of Internet and e-mail, they started beeing diffused on a large scale using the same channels used by spam mail, and now nearly everyone has received al least one if not many more letters of this kind. You can browse a collection of Nigerian Scam letters and post your own letters in the Nigerian Scam Forum.  Although all Nigerian Scam letters are similar and the kind of transaction that follows if you reply to the letters is similar for all letters, the development of events can in fact vary enormously depending on the particular scammer who 'handles your case', on who the victim is and on various environmental factors. Some victims were convinced, after some correspondence, to fly to Nigeria where they were kidnapped and killed. In most cases the outcome is less severe and the victim simply looses varying amounts of money, time and self-esteem. How can the scammers get the money out of your bank account with a simple letter? Well, you will simply send them the money yourself, in the belief the money you are sending is required to facilitate various aspects of the tranfer of the multimilliondollar sum to you. You'd be amazed to discover how many aspects of the transaction will require you to send money to the scammer, how many things can go wrong during the tranfer of 45.000.000$ (FOURTY FIVE MILLION DOLLARS) from nigeria/africa/the netherlands to your bank account. Taxes, customs fees, fees to government officials who should 'facilitate' the transfer, fees for the local attorney who handles the procedures. During all this process you are flooded by officially looking documents, full of government/banks stamps and signatures of the president, the minister, the official attorney, the general supervisor that testify the advancement of the various complex procedures required to move the money toward you bank account. You are in turn often asked for a lot of personal information, including details about your bank account. Of course, how could they possibly send you the money if they don't know the intimate details of your account? They'll soon know everything about you, when you are born, where you leave, as well has having the copies of your ID cards that you had to send over to be officialy indicated as the person who should receive the founds. You know, they have to be sure about who they are dealing with, given the sums involved, you could scam them and run with the money. So please send over copies of your ID and full bank details. Overall the Nigerian Scam is tipically a very "bureaucratic" scam, lots and lots of paperwork required. See a sample fake official nigerian document here. Let's start by having a look at the initial e-mails sent by the scammers.  Anatomy of the Nigerian Scam Letter The scammer usually starts by telling you how he got your e-mail, so that you should not be surprised to recieve his letter although you don't know him personally. These introductions are of course barely believable, but when you start talking about 45.000.000$, does this really matters? Will you brain evaluate correctly this kind of statement: I got your reference from the Nigeria Exports Promotion Council (NEPC) and went further to have it confirmed by your country‚s trade department under private inquiry that is not related to my aim of writing you this letter You were introduced to me by a trusted contact in the External Affairs Ministry of Foreign Trade Mission I came to know of you in my search for a reliable and reputable person to handle a very confidential transaction, which involves the transfer of a huge sum of money to a foreign account As led by my instinct, I selected your email address from an internet directory, in my search for a partner, hence this email I am writing, following the impressive information about your profile through the website , Your capability and reliability to champion this opportunity Well, too often the answer has been a big NO, as judged by the number of people who fell in this kind of scam. Why should your e-mail be listed in the Nigeria Exports Promotion Council? Do you have any contact in the External Affairs Ministry of Foreign Trade Mission? It might not matter to your brain, who is occupied in visualizing the 45.000.000$, your new ferrari, your new house on the beach... Next, you are informed that there is a large sum of money, several million dollars (20-50 million dollars) somewhere in a bank account in Nigeria (or elsewhere), available for transfer abroad, your assistance is kindly required: ...The original value of these contracts were deliberately over invoiced to the sum of USD$25,000,000.00 (Twenty Five Million United State Dollars). This amount has now been approved and is now ready to be transferred ..it is pertinent to note that, the remaining balance of Eight million, seven hundred thousand united states dollars (US$8,700,000.00) is lying in the suspense account of the First Chartered Bank Lagos, ready for transfer into an oversea After careful deliberations, we (my colleagues and I) unanimously agreed to transfer this sum of $48.6 million into a foreign account for investment purposes, hence we are seeking your assistance and co-operation to achieve this objective I am looking or seeking for someone who will assist me in transfering the sum of money my father left in a suspended account of a Bank here in Abidjan. The amount is ($25,800.000.00) This money (US$18.5million), which was already on its way to my Uncle's Swiss Bank account, through the Diplomatic means we use to move money abroad, and was on transit with a private safe deposit security and Finance company here in Amsterdam-Holland. In February last year when the tragic incident of my Uncle's death occurred. I then instructed the company to secure the consignment containing the money pending on further instructions from me. I have waited for sometime now for security reasons, and have now decided to act with your reliable assistance. My late husband was among the few black Zimbabwean rich farmers murdered in cold blood by the agents of the ruling government of president Robert Mugabe for his alleged support and sympathy for the Zimbabwean opposition party controlled by the white minority. Before his death he had taken to Dakar-Senegal and deposited the sum of US$ 13.5 Million (Thirteen Million Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) with a Security and Finance Company, sensing the looming danger in Zimbabwe. I am the first son of General Sanni Abacha, the late Military Head of State of Nigeria. I have been in detention for past four years and I was only granted bail recently by an Abuja High Court when the government requested that my family return two billion United States dollars for my freedom. This was agreed in principal and upon my release, I have refused to honour the pledge because there was some loopholes in my agreement with the Government and the money in issue I consider to be my family's money duly earned. In justifying the source of the money, the creativity of the scammer has no limits. So many variants are around that it it difficult to keep track of all of them. Let's highlight some popular categories: - The Scammer is the brother/sun/mother/sister/daughter/nephew of a deceased influential and rich political/military leader or merchant, who left behing a HUGE sum of money: My name is Kelvin Boma Savimbi, I am a nephew and Personal Assistant to Late Jonas Malheiro Savimbi, leader of UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola). I am AZEEZ ABACHA, son of the former military Head of State of Nigeria-late General Sani Abacha, of blessed memory. Shortly after the death of my father, it was apparent that the in-coming military Administration hostile to my father, would victimise us in anyway possible. The entire familly members decided to steatly and discreetly remove monies $18million dollars I am Mr. Muyiwa Ige, the first son of the Attorney General of the federation/minister of Justice under the present Government of President Olusegun Obasanjo, my Late father who wasassassinated on the 23rd of December , 2001 by the assailant's bullets in our Residential home in Ibadan-Nigeria. The sum of twenty-six million United States Dollars USD$ 26million dollars belonging to my late father was kept in a private security company by me in a narrowing country which I will disclose to you in the cause of this transaction I am NELSON MEE BELLO JR, The first son of late Mr. and Mrs.Usman Bello. My father was a very wealthy GOLD AND COCOA merchant in Congo republic. His business associate on one of their business outing poisoned him to death...Before the death of my father on the 29th November 2000 in a private hospital here in Nigeria, He sincerely called me on his bed side and told me that he had a sum of 35.600,000 US DOLLARS (THIRTY FIVE MILLION SIX HUNDRED UNITED STATES DOLLARS) kept in a security company in SOUTH AFRICA I am a young man of 22 years old , by name Mr edword Mbousoume, the son of late of Dr Albert Mbousoume From france-ville Northern GABON, one time by political appointment Director of International Affaires Department of GABON PETROL AND NATURAL GAS who died on a board meeting with the International Oil Gulf Representatives, in September 11th 2001 at the World Trade Center (!!!!) in New York City USA I am Sodindo Malinga, the first son of Tawanda Malinga, the most popular black farmer in Zimbabwe who was murdered in the land dispute in my country - The Scammer pretends to be himself a Bank Manager, a member of the military, a manager of a big company, who managed to get the multimillion sum through more or less legal means. The stated source of the money is usually somewhat  borderline. It's not really illegal, but it's not clear whether the source is fully legitimate. The reason for this is probably to prevent the victim, maybe in subsequent phases of the scam, to turn to law enforcement, in the belief that the victim itself  might eventually face charges. So where is all this money coming from? Here are some representative examples: WITHIN THE MINISTRY OF PETROLEUM RESOURCES WHERE I WORK, AS DIRECTOR,PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION AND WITH THE COOPERATION OF FOUR OTHER TOP OFFICIALS. WE HAVE IN OUR POSSESSION AS OVER-DUE PAYMENT BILLS TOTALING US$30.5M(THIRTY MILLION FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS) WHICH WE WANT TO TRANSFER ABROAD WITH THE ASSISTANCE AND COOPERATION OF TRUSTED FOREIGN FIRM OR INDIVIDUAL THAT WILL RECEIVE THE SAID FUND ON OUR BEHALF INTO ANY ACCOUNT PROVIDED TO RECEIVE SUCH FUND. WE, PUBLIC SERVANTS ARE NOT ALLOWED TO OPERATE OFFSHORE ACCOUNT, HENCE YOUR IMPORTANCE IN THE WHOLE TRANSACTION. THE AMOUNT US $18.5M REPRESENTED SOME PERCENTAGE OF THE TOTAL CONTRACT VALUE EXECUTED ON BEHALF OF MY MINISTRY BY A FOREIGN CONTRACTING FIRM, WHICH WE THE OFFICIALS OVER-INVOICED DELIBERATELY (Does not sound really clean, does it. Please note the "all capitals" style, tipical of many scam letters of the Nigerian category) During the regime of our late head of state, Gen. Sani Abacha, the government officials set up companies and awarded themselves contracts which were grossly over-invoiced in various Ministries. The NEW CIVILIAN Government set up a Contract Review Panel (C.R.P) and we have identified a lot of inflated contract funds which are presently floating in the Central Bank of Nigeria (C.B.N). However, due to our position as civil servants and members of this panel, we cannot acquire this money in our names (Note: the money is coming from "inflated funds"). I have therefore, been delegated as a matter of trust by my colleagues of the panel to look for an Overseas partner INTO whose ACCOUNT the sum of US$31,000,000.00 (Thirty one Million United States Dollars) WILL BE PAID BY TELEGRAPHIC TRANSFER. Hence we are writing you this letter ( You are the lucky one!!!). We are officials of the Ministry of Health and Social Services (MHSS) in Ghana. This Ministry awarded a contract of USD$115,800,000.00 (One Hundred and Fifteen Million, Eight Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) to a foreign firm for the supply and installation of Scan machines, X-ray machines, E.C.G machines, Foetus heart and Fasting blood sugar machines for all the University Teaching Hospitals in the country. I and other senior members of my department (Contract Award Committee), in the cause of writing the contract, we were able to over-invoice the contract sum to the tune of USD$143,300,000.00 (One Hundred and Forty Three Million, Three Hundred Thousand United States Dollars). I am a member of the Federal Government of Nigeria Contract Award and Monitoring Committee in the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporatio(NNPC). Sometime ago, a contract was awarded to a foreign firm in NNPC by my Dollars. This was done deliberately. The over-invoicing was a deal by my committee to benefit from the project. We now want to transfer this money which is in a suspense Account with NNPC into any Overseas Account which we expect you to provide for us. In the course of our duties, we discovered that the sum of $48.6 million (forty eight million, six hundred thousand USA dollars) has been lying in a suspense account with the apex bank since 1998 without beneficiary (ies) our further investigation reveals that this sum accumulated as a result of over- invoiced executed contracts influenced by past retired military government personnel and was unclaimed due to transformation of new democratic government  In other instances, the money was deposited in a Bank by a foreign customer who then died (ofter in a plane crash) and nobody is now claiming the money: we discovered an abandoned sum of 20 million US dollars (twenty million US dollars). In an account that belongs to one of our foreign customers who died along with his entire family in September,1992 in a plane crash I am the Auditor General of a bank in Africa, during the course of our auditing I discovered a floating fund in an account opened in the bank in 1990 and since 1993 nobody has operated on this account again, after going through some old files in the records I discovered that the owner of the account died without a [heir] hence the money is floating and if I do not remit this money out urgently it will be forfeited for nothing  Are you willing to be presented as the bonafide net of kin to Mr. Floyd Thomasson, a crude oil merchant from Australia (In this one, the scammer is proposing the victim to impersonate a relative of the dead bank account owner!). Until his untimely death by the recent Bali bomb explosion in Indonesia, Mr. Floyd operated a fixed account of Twelve Million United States Dollars (US$12,000,000.00) with Standard Trust Bank.   I am Rotimi Clark, Bank Manager of ORIENT BANK OF NIGERIA, Lagos Branch. On Nonember 1997, an American oil consultant/contractor with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Mr. Barry Kelly made a numbered time (Fixed) deposited for twelve calendar months, valued at US$25,000,000.00 (Twenty-five Million ollars) in my branch. Upon maturity, I sent a routine notification to his forwarding address but got no reply. After a month, we sent a reminder and finally we discovered from his contract employers, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation that Mr. Barry Kelly died from an automobile accident What does the scammer requires you to do - The Rules of the Game The rules of the scammer's game are as follows: you will get your share of the (for example)  45.000.000$ (if your share is 20% you will get 9.000.000$!!!) when you succed in transferring the money from the Nigerian/African account to a european account, or sometimes to europe in cash!! In the process of transferring the money, a number of more or less unexpected events will require you to send money for the scammer. For example, 'government officials' might have to be paid for 'avoiding problems'. The Scammer 'lawyer' (of course the scammer will often impersonate many players of the game at the same time) will take care of these transactions for you, just send the money. Government 'taxes' might pop-up. The lawyer itself should be paid. There is virtually no end to the expenses in which you will incurr during the process of money transfer, the scammer will play with you until either you realize you are beeing scammed, of your are stripped-out of all your belongings. A victim might for example sell his house and car to pay the scammers fees. After all, 1000-10.000-100.000$ is nothing as compared to 9.000.000$. The transactions and interactions with the scammer, initially handled by e-mail, often rapidly include phone calls. At a certain point of the transaction, it is not unfrequent that the scammers propose to meet the victim in person, often in Nigeria. For example the scammer migt say that the presence of the victim in nigeria is required to deal in person with 'government officials' as the recipient of the funds, and to sign some documents in front of local authorities. As you can imagine when a victim flies to Nigeria, his destiny is uncertain. There are many reports of kidnapping followed by ransom requests.  In other cases the victim is required to go to Nigeria and bring  lots of cash with him, and is then robbed and maybe murdered. These aspects make the Nigerian Scam a particularly risky category to fall into. It is impressive how a well know scam around for decades is still alive and perfectly effective today. Nigerian Scam Resources Because of it's 'popularity' and diffusion, the Nigerian Scam has attracted the interest of many people, who dealt with the phenomenon in quite different ways.  For example a guy decided to 'fight back' and seems to have a lot of time to dedicate to... scam the scammers! With amazing psicological skills, by using the very same techniques the scammers use, this guy is often able to trick the scammer into SENDING MONEY TO HIM! The guy then post the details of the story (sample file), the correspondence with the scammers and the recordings of his phone calls with the scammer (PRICELESS!!!) on his web site, 419eaters.com . Also this guy is able to have the scammer send him a photograph of the scammer itself in priceless ridiculous poses. Have a look at the trophy room. If you want to read an absolutely exhilarating, complete correspondence report with a scammer go here. If you need to write yourself a Nigerian Scam Letter, take advantage of the great fully automated Nigerian Scam Letter Generator. A long read but quite informative: anatomy of a case, at the 419 coalition web site  Finally, here's a definition a 'Advanced Fee Fraud', a category that includes Nigerian Scam, taken from the nice Scam FAQ at Scamorama: Q: What is advance fee fraud? A: Advance fee fraud is when you (the victim) fork out money in anticipation of some (imaginary) benefit, such as inheriting money from an imaginary person, winning an imaginary lotto which you didn't enter, skimming imaginary public funds (shame on you!), helping an imaginary company process imaginary payments by receiving their rubber checks and sending them your (real) money. There are many variations on this scam, but they all involve your real money leaving you. You can find a nice collection of Nigerian Scam e-mails in the dedicated Nigerian Scam Forum , where you can also post the Nieriam Scam e-mails you recieved. Posting scam e-mails in a public forum is an EXTREMELY valuable action, as it allows other people who recieve the same message to be warned it's a scam, by just doing a little search on the web. We have recieved litterally dozens of messages from visitors to the web site thanking us and the posters for being able to undestand the great e-mail they just received was in fact a dangerous scam. TURN YOUR SCAM E-MAILS INTO A VALUE, POST THEM IN THE E-MAIL SCAM FORUMS!!! Discuss this article   © 2006 makemoneyfastworld.com