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"419" Scam – Advance Fee / Fake Lottery Scam

The so-called "419" scam is a type of fraud dominated by criminals from Nigeria and other countries in Africa. Victims of the scam are promised a large amount of money, such as a lottery prize, inheritance, money sitting in some bank account, etc.

Victims never receive this non-existent fortune but are tricked into sending their money to the criminals, who remain anonymous. They hide their real identity and location by using fake names and fake postal addresses as well as communicating via anonymous free email accounts and mobile phones.

Keep in mind that scammers DO NOT use their real names when defrauding people.
The criminals either abuse names of real people or companies or invent names or addresses.
Any real people or companies mentioned below have NO CONNECTION to the scammers!

Read more about such scams here or in our 419 FAQ. Use the Scam-O-Matic to verify suspect emails.

Click here to report a problem with this page.

 

 

Some comments by the Scam-O-Matic about the following email:

Fraud email example:

From: "Mr. Bernard Raoul" <benraoul1@centrum.cz>
Reply-To: maffernandez221@telegraf.by
Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2010 02:25:34 -0200 (BRST)
Subject: ATTN:From The Desk Of Mr. Bernard Raoul




From The Desk Of Mr. Bernard Raoul
Auditing and Accounting Manager,

Dear Friend,

Everything that happens to one has spiritual significance. I was just
leafing through the profiles of some names in the internet before I came
through your name. Though, the internet has been grossly abused by scam
artist and miscreants whose intention is to hurt. In as much as one should
be careful, same time we should not allow negative to kill the positive
potential in a realistic business. I have chosen to reach you because I
felt that business is taking risk, going from the known to the unknown.

I am the manager of Accounts/Operations Department of our bank here in
Abidjan Cote D'Ivoire . In my department we discovered an abandoned sum of
(US$16.5, million US dollars) in an account that belongs to one of our
foreign customer retired Atlanta physician Mr. George Brumley Jr, who die
in Kenya Airways crash in the coasts of Abidjan in which all passengers on
board died. Since then I have made several inquiries to your embassy to
locate any of my clients extended relatives but has been unsuccessful.

Since we got information about his death, we have been expecting his next
of kin to come over and claim his money because we cannot release it
unless some body applies for it as next of kin or relation to the deceased
as indicated in our banking guidelines and laws but unfortunately we
learnt that all his supposed next of kin or relation died alongside with
him at the plane crash leaving nobody behind for the claim.
You can check the website below for more details:

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/africa/07/20/kenya.crash/index.html


It is therefore upon this discovery that I now decided to make this
business proposal to you and release the money to you as the next of kin
or relation to the deceased for safety and subsequent disbursement since
nobody is coming for it and we don't want this money to go into the bank
treasury as unclaimed bill.

The request of foreigner as next of kin in this business is occasioned by
the fact that the customer was a foreigner and an Ivorian cannot stand as
next of kin to a foreigner. I agree that 50% of this money will be for you
as a respect to the provision of a foreign account, While 50% will be for
me Thereafter,

All I require is your honest cooperation to enable us see this deal
through I guarantee that this will be executed under all legitimate
arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law. In your
reply mail, I want you to give me your full details, If you can handle
this with me,

Full
Names,
Full Address,
Date of Birth,
Telephone
Country
Fax Numbers.

Thanking you for your anticipated cooperation

Best Regards,
Mr. Bernard Raoul.


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