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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.

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

Fraud email example:

From: =?UTF-8?B?bWVyZWRpdGggIGdpYmJzb24=?= <mgibbson@list.ru>
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2015 15:14:07 +0300
Subject: =?UTF-8?B?TXkgRGVhciBHb29kIGRheSzCoA==?=

My Dear Good day,  
please I decide to write to you under a humanitarian ground, and I am contacting you to let you know my desire to establish a charity foundation in your country with this sum of (US$6.3MD) which I inherited from my late husband, who was formal mechanical engineers[ petrol Ci ] in Ivory Coast since we don't have any child that will inherit this money and It is my desire now to see that this money is invested to any organization of your choice in your country with your name and distributed each year among the charity organizations motherless baby's home, and to brief of myself i have a breast cancer for 7 years , and recently, my Doctor told me that I would not last for the next four months due to cancer problem that was the reasoning I decided invest this money into charity foundation, and have full confidence in you and hope you will coordinate everything on my behalf.
etc,Your suggestions and ideas will be appreciated & am willing to offer you 5% of the total money for your help. I hope to hear from you to give U more details and process transfer of the money into your country bank.  
pls email me back at this Address [  meredithgs@voila.fr   ]
Thanks you,  
I await your very urgent answer,  
Regard,  
Mrs. Meredith Gibson.

Anti-fraud resources: