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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: Kelly Jonah <kellyjonah2014@yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 20 May 2014 16:02:57 +0000
Subject: Dr. Kelly Jonah I hope to hear from you today as you receive my
message thanks you ( Action Requested )

Dear Sir,
Compliments of the day to you. I hope your doing well and
that this letter meets you and your family in good health. On my honor, I
want to introduce myself, my name is Dr. Kelly Jonah, I am the chairman of
Contract Tender Board/Award Committee of West African Health Support
Organization (WAHSO) we have our headquarters in Accra Ghana from where I
operates but our sub and area offices are in all member states of the
organization. This organization is an arm of the Economic Communities of
West African States (ECOWAS). It is the largest single organization
operating here in West African sub-region with 15 member states and my
organization sees about health support related matters in the whole region.
In 2009 there was an outbreak of cerebral meningitis in many member states
of our region including Mali, Republic of Niger, Burkina Faso, Guinea
Bissau and Cape Verde. The outbreak of this disease and its rapid spread
was alarming and a disaster so my organization was mandated by the regional
executive body to immediately take every necessary action to bring the
situation under control. We swung into action in collaboration with World
Health Organization (WHO). We awarded contracts to various drug
manufactures and large drug distributing companies both in South Africa,
Europe and Asia for supply of drugs and related services for both cure and
prevention of the disease from spreading to other states. The contract
entered with those companies was initially meant to last for (1)year but
unfortunately we found out before the end of the contract that we grossly
underestimated the situation at hand then the contract was extended for
more 1 yr and more companies were also engaged in the war against the
disease and its spread which ended in early 2013. During the deliberations
and the processing of the contracts, myself and members of my committee
connived and inflated the value of the contract to the tune of 28.83
million USD. The contract has been completed long before now and full
payments made to all the suppliers of both drugs and services used in the
fight against the disease while the disease itself has been declared
flushed in the areas. The balance of the inflated amount has been floating
in the balance sheet of the agency's account and recently the bank manager
wrote and required me to forward account where the remaining of the balance
will be paid to. It is on this regard that I am inviting you to come and
partner with us so we can move this fund out of Africa for our collective
interest. What we need is for you to provide a durable account that we
would use to receive this money for the benefit of all of us. We made up
this mark up in order take care of our retirement benefits because some of
us in this committee are due for retirement soon and we believe this will
help in no small measure to effect great change in our generations coupled
with the fact that the project was a multi-million dollar one so it
provided a very unique and great opportunity for us all. If you will want
to partner with us as a businessman you will know that you must be able to
provide an account that will have the capacity to contain the volume of
money involved and then we can negotiate with you the protocol and sharing
formula of the money. We are matured men in the highest cadres of our
careers and would want to protect both our reputation which we have worked
hard over the years to build, our family names, careers and grown up
children we have, so we would want you to take this transaction serious and
give it it's desired attention if you accepts this partnership. Please
confirm the receipt of this message and let us know your position
immediately.

Thanks
Regards,
Dr. Kelly Jonah Chairman,
Contract Award Committee
West African Health Support
Organization (WAHSO)
South Labadi Beach Estate,
Accra Ghana.

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