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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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Fraud email example:

From: "cosmas mensah" <cosmasmensah01@businessconnection.com> (may be fake)
Reply-To: cosmasmensah@businessconnection.com
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 01:24:59 +0000
Subject: CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS

FROM: MR COSMAS MENSAH. MANAGER AUDITING AND ACCOUNTING UNIT. INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL BANK OF GHANA (ICB) ACCRA GHANA. My Friend, I am pleased to write you this letter base on the confidence I have for you. I am Mr.Cosmas Mensah. Manager auditing and accounting unit International Commercial bank (ICB) here in Accra, Ghana. In my department we discovered an abandoned huge amount of money, which resulted to the sum of (US$30,600.000), after several investigation was carried we discovered that account belongs to one of our foreign customer who died along with his entire family in Monday, 31 July 2000 in a plane crash in Paris? Please I will like you to go through this site that is one of the evidence the directors brought in other to swallow the money at the end of the day,http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/02/01/alaska.airlines.list/. 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 non of his relatives has been found although i have several enquiries in different embassies here in Ghana but to no avail. So after all this unsuccessful attempt I now decided to have you presented as the next of kin or relation to the deceased for safety and subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for it and I don't want this money to go into the bank treasury as unclaimed bill. The banking laws and guidelines here stipulates that if such money remained unclaimed after five years, the money will be transferred into the bank treasury as unclaimed fund. The request of foreigner as next of kin in this business is occasioned by the fact that the customer was a foreigner and not a Ghanaian so a Ghanaian cannot stand as next of kin to a foreigner. I have agree that 30% of this money will be for you as a respect to the provision of a foreign account, 10% will be set aside for expenses that will incurred during the business and 60% would be for me there after, I will visit your country for disbursement according to the percentage indicated, therefore to enable the immediate transfer of this fund to your designated bank account, you must apply first to the bank as a relation or next of kin of the deceased with a text of application that I will send to you, so i will like you to send to me your private telephone and fax number for easy and effective communication and location where in the money will be remitted. Upon receipt of your response, I will send to you by fax or email the text of the application. I will not fail to bring to your notice this transaction is hitch-free and that you should not entertain any atom of fear, as all required arrangements have been made for the transfer. You should contact me immediately as soon as you receive this letter. Faithfully, Mr. Cosmas Mensah

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