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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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Some comments by the Scam-O-Matic about the following email:

Fraud email example:

From: "to mart" <tonymartins_66@hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2005 09:31:29 +0100
Subject: ATTENTION NEEDED

Strictly confidential:

Dear Sir,

Re: collection of fund ($USD152, 000,000.00) under special arrangement.

Pardon me if I have offended you by contacting you for such a big
transaction through an ordinary letter which makes it suspicious
considering the type of fraud proposals moving around the world today.
However, I was advised to explain this transaction to you on face to face
meeting. I could not do this because of the situation in the world today
not being sure of your reaction.

I am Mr. Tony Martins, a consultant and broker from Kingston Jamaica.
I was hired by a Japanese business man to broker an investment deal
between himself and oil company in Venezuela. This deal was executed in
January 1997 and matured for termination in 2001 On maturity, the
Japanese businessman and the oil firm decided to terminate the investment
in cash to avoid payment of investment tax which amounted to several
millions
of U.S dollars to the America internal revenue service (IRS). A special
arrangement was made between a top Japanese banker working with Japanese
bank in New York, the oil company and the businessman to terminate the
investment in cash payment under a fictitious name which happened to
be the same with your name, with an arrangement to change it latter
with a power of attorney which they prepared and handed over to the top
banker. I was directly involved, well paid and mandated to organize and
carry out the deal. All the cash was withdrawn in November 2001 and
transported to Europe by direct bank vault to vault delivering to a
private diplomatic storage in Europe for safe keeping pending the
collection. The real content of the boxes were not declared to the
storage as it was delivered as personal family treasure and diamonds.
The code for the storage, secret codes for the opening of the boxes and
its keys were all handed over to me.

Mr. Takashi the New York business man was planning to go to Europe by
mid of November 2001 with me for the collection when the unexpected
happened in September 11th attack on the twin tower which claim his
life and that of the top banker. This left me devastated and confused as I
have not yet handed over the deposit details to the owner and the power
of attorney prepared for the change which was signed was still with
the banker in his office which was also lost. It was agreed with the
storage that the consignment would be collect on or before 12 months
from the date of delivery. Since due date the diplomatic storage manager has
been calling me to bring or tell the owner to come over for collection.
My friend, since then I have been looking for any reliable person with
the same name to collect these consignment under special and well
negotiated arrangement until I got your email contact.

All the needed secret code and identification and collection are all
with me. Be rest assured that this transaction has been well organized,
100% safe, legal, risk free and should be kept very confidential.
Please, contact me for the way forward in this transaction. If you
think we can do this together in trust.


Feel free to reach me on both of my email accounts.
Expecting to hear from you soon.

Regards,
TONY MARTINS

_________________________________________________________________
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