419 scam: "Desmond Maseko"<desmondmaseeko@superposta.com> RE: MUTUAL BENEFIT BUSINESS OFFER

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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:

This email uses a separate reply address that is different from the sender address. Spammers use this to get replies even when the original spam sending accounts have been shut down. Also, sometimes the sender addresses are legitimate looking but fake and only the reply address is actually an email account controlled by the scammers.
The following phrases in this message should put you on alert:
- "dear friend" (a common phrase found in 419 scams)
- "huge amount of money" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
- ",500,000" (they want you to be blinded by the prospect of quick money, but the only money that ever changes hands in 419 scams is from you to the criminals)
This email message is a 419 scam. Please see our 419 FAQ for more details on such scams.

Fraud email example:

From: "Desmond Maseko" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <desmondmasekko@superposta.com>
Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 14:32:09 -0600
Subject: RE: MUTUAL BENEFIT BUSINESS OFFER

Standard Bank of South Africa
9th Floor
Standard Bank Centre
5 Simmonds Street
Johannesburg 2001
P O Box 7725
Johannesburg 2000

Dear Friend,
I am Desmond Maseko a senior accountant at Standard Bank of South Africa, I have a business deal that will benefit both of us immensely and need your assistance as a foreign patner to achieve this goal, I want you to assist me in receving a total amount of $12,500,000 United States dollars which has been abandoned at our bank for over ten years now by one of our customers (Salem Hussein Hasan al-Salami) from Iraq who was beheaded in Saudi Arabia for Drug Traficking in the year 2003.

I want to assure you not to be afraid of this deal because we created the bank account secretly for him to be receiving huge amount of money he realised from the sales of Drugs which we knew about because he was very friendly to us, The account was created in a fake name (Ahmed Smith) to protect his Identity and that is the reason his family members or anybody cannot come forth to claim th money since ten years because they are not aware and will never be.

All we need to get the funds is a foreign bank account and a lawyer here to do Change of ownership to your name then the fund will be released to the foreign bank account and we share it as agreed with you taking 30% and we taking 65% while we can reserve 5% for expenses after the transfer to the foreign bank account you provide. If you will be ready to work with me we can proceed then I give you more details.

Regards,
Desmond Maseko

Anti-fraud resources:

What can you do when you receive 419 spam