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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: "TATABI 317" <tatabi317@hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 12:15:19 +0000
Subject: VERY PRIVATE AND URGENT URGENT REPLY.

FROM THE DESK OF MR.TATABI
BILL AND EXCHANGE MANAGER,
BANK OF AFRICA (BOA)OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO.

CONFIDENTIAL

Dear Friend,

I am the manager of bill and exchange at the foreign remittance department
of Bank of Africa, Burkina Faso.

In my department we discovered an abandoned sum of ($ 15.3M US dollars
fifteen million) three hondred thousand US dollars) . In an account that
belongs to one of our foreign customer who died along with his entire family
in a concord plane crash in 1999 in paris that almost took the whole life of
the pasengeres on boad.

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 business
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 stipulates that if such money remained
unclamed after Four years, the money will be transfered into the Bank
treasury account 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 a Burkinabe cannot stand as
next of kin to a foreigner.

I have agree that 30 % of this money will be for you as foreign partner, in
respect to the provision of a foreign account, 10 % will be set aside for
expenses incured during the business and 60 % would be for me. There after I
will visit your country for disbursement according to the percentages
indicated.

Therefore to enable the immediate trnansfer 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 risk free and that you should not entertain any atom
of fear as all required arrangements have been made for the transfer .

Please kindly contact me immediately as soon as you receive this letter.


Yours faithfully,
TATABI

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