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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.

 

 

Fraud email example:

From: "w allamu" <washidi_allamu@tiscali.co.uk>
Reply-To: w_allamu@hotmail.com
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2005 08:35:10 +0000
Subject: TREAT AS URGENT AND CONFIDENTIAL.

FROM THE DESK OF WASHIDI ALLAMU
BILL AND EXCHANGE MANAGER,
AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK
OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO.

Dear Friend,
I am the manager bill and exchange at AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK (ADB) foreign
remittance department . There is a business I would want you to champion
for me.


In my department we discovered an abandoned sum of $15.5MUSD dollars (fifteen
million and five hundred thousand US dollars) . In an account that belongs
to
one of our foreign customer who died along with his entire family in july
2000 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 in 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 we don't want this money to go into the Bank
treasury as unclaimed Bill.


The Banking law and guidelines here stipulates that if such money remained
unclamed after eight 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 the fact that
the customer was a foreigner and a Burkinabe cannot stand as next of kin
to a foreigner. I 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 .
Thereafter I will visit your country for disbursement accoding 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 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.

Yours faithfully
MR.WASHIDI ALLAMU







___________________________________________________________

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