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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: "MOON ZEQO" <moonzeqo106@hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 18:56:16 +0000
Subject: COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON.

FROM THE DESK OF MOON ZEQO

BANK B.I.C.I.A.B

OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO.
BILL AND EXCHANGE MANAGER,

PRIVATE CONFIDENTIAL

COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON.

I am the manager of bill and exchange at the foreign
remittance department of bank lnternationale pour le Commerce et le
lndustrie et de la Agriculture du Burkina-Faso I am writing following the
impressive information about you through one of my friends
who runs a consultancy firm in your country. He assured me of your
capability and reliability to champion this business opportunity.

In my department we discovered an abandoned sum of $ 20m US dollars ( Twenty
million US dollars) . In an account that belongs to one of our foreign
customer who died along with his entire family in november 16,1998 in a
plane crash.

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
somebody applies for it as next of kin or relation to the deceased as
indicated in our banking guidelines 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. It is therefore upon this discovery
that I now decided to make this businness 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 I don´t want this money to go
into the Bank treasury as unclaimed Bill.
The Banking law and guideline here stipulatesthat if such money remained
unclamed after five years, the money will be transfered into the Bank
treasury as unclaimed fund.
The request of foreigner as next of kin in this business is occasioned by
thefact that the customer was a foreigner and a Burkinabe cannot stand as
next of kin to a foreigner.

50 % of this money will be for you as foreign partner, in respect to the
provision of a foreign account, 50 % would be for me .
There after I will visit your country for disbursement accoding to the
percentages indicated.
Therefore to enable the immediate transfer of this fund to you as
arranged,you must apply first to the bank as relations or next of kin of the
deceased indicating your bank name, your bank account number, your private
telephone and fax number for easy and effective communication and location
where in the money will be remitted .
Upon receipt of your reply, I will send to you by fax or email the text of
the application. I will not fail to bring to your notice that 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.
Trusting to hear from you immediately.

Your´s faithfully,
MOON ZEQO
Bill and exchange manager,
BANK BICIAB

_________________________________________________________________
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