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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: "devine enechi" <divine_enechi@hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 03 Aug 2005 09:22:39 +0100
Subject: ASSISTANT NEEDED

Dearest One,

REQUEST TO BE MY GUARDIAN AND THEN HELP ME TO COME OVER TO YOUR
COUNTRY:
Good day and how are you today? I hope fine? I got your contact from
internet,permit me to inform you of my desire to ask you to be a guardian or
foster parent to me and then help me out in what I'm about to tell you.I'm
Miss Divine Enechi(19) i,m the only daughter of Late Mr.& Mrs.Joseph Enechi.
My father
was a very wealthy Oil Marchant here in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria. He
was poisoned to death by his business associates on one of their outings on
a business trip. My mother died when i was a baby.


Before the death of my father on Sept. 2004 in a private hospital here in
Abuja, he secretly called me by his bed side and told me that he has the sum
of Fifteen million United State Dollars USD ($15m) deposited in a suspense
account in one of the big banks in Lagos. He told me that he used my name as
the next of Kin in depositing the money.He then strongly advised me not
to seek for assistance in the investment of the money from his lawyer nor
any of his friends here but to seek for a foreign partner from a country of
my choice (outside my country,Nigeria) that willl assist me in the wise
investment of the money.I have since left the money in the bank with the
view of my making use of it for investment purposes after my education
carrier here.I now want to transfer it out and use it for investment
purpose.
Because of this i am honorably seeking your assistance in the following
ways:

(1) To serve as a guardian to me and then assist me transfer the money into
your bank account. (2) To make arrangement for me to come over to your
country to further my education and then settle there parmanently. If you
accept to stand as my guardian or foster parent to me, i need not to discuss
on any percentage with you as you have to see the whole money as yours and
then assist me in investing it. But if you still want a percentage, i i am
willing to offer you, 20 % of the total money as compensation for your
assistance.Please tell me if you feel the percentage I offered is not ok by
you.

As soon as I receive your concrete assurance to assist me with my proposal
and also your full contact address/phone number, I will then give the bank
your contact information and then tell them to transfer the money into your
account as I want to come over to stay with you parmanently. The bank will
then contact you and communicate with you on the transfer. You shall then be
giving me information on when the transfer will be over. I
shall also send my picture to you and shall also need yours too.


No matter what your decision may turn out to be, please I beg you to keep
this highly secret for my safety, as I believe that those that killed my
Daddy are still after me. Please reply me.

Thanks and God bless you .

Best regards,

Miss Divine Enechi.

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