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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: "Charles Greene" <charlesgreene123@msn.com>
Reply-To: cgreene45@tiscali.it
Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2005 12:24:41 +0000
Subject: FROM MR CHARLES GREENE


>From the desk of:
Mr Charles Greene
Auditor General of
Natwest Bank Group
UK.

23/09/05

Dear Friend,

I am Mr Charles Greene Auditor General of Natwest Bank Group UK. Natwest
Bank London. I am writing following an oppurtunity in my office that will be
of imense benefit to both of us.

In my department we discovered an abandoned sum of £20.5million British
Pounds Sterling (Twenty million five hundred thousand British Pounds) in an
account that belongs to one of our foreign customers Late Mr. Morris
Thompson an American who unfortunately lost his life in the plane crash of
Alaska Airlines Flight 261 which crashed on January 31 2000, including his
wife and only daughter. You shall read more about the crash on visiting this
site.

http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/02/01/alaska.airlines.list/ and
http://www.nativefederation.org/history/people/mThompson.html

Since we got information about his death, we have been expecting his next of
kin or relatves 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.
Unfortunately I learnt that his supposed next of kin being his only daughter
died along with him in the plane crash leaving nobody with the knowledge of
this fund behind for the claim. It is therefore upon this discovery that I
and two other officials in this department now decided to make business with
you and release the money to you as the next of kin or beneficiary of the
funds for safety keeping and subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming
for it and we don’t want this money to go back into Government treasury as
unclaimed bill.

The banking law and guidelines here stipulates that such money remained
after six years the money will be transferred into banking treasury as
unclaimed funds.
We agreed that 35% of this money will be for you as foreign partner,
while the balance will be for me and my colleagues. I will visit your
country for the disbursement according to the percentages indicated above
once this money gets into your account. Please be honest to me and trust is
our watchword in this transaction.
Note this transaction is confidential and risk free. As soon as you receive
this mail you should contact me by return mail.

Please note that all necessary arrangement for the smooth release of these
funds to you has been finalised. We will discuss much in details when I do
receive your response.

Please if you are interested in this project contact me for further
directives.

Best regards

Mr Charles Greene


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