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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: "George Craige" <gcraig01@msn.com>
Reply-To: gcraig1@walla.com
Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2005 09:01:47 +0000
Subject: PLS REPLY FOR MORE INFO...

PRUDENTIAL PLC. LAURENCE POULTNEY HILL LONDON EC4R 0HH WEBSITE:http://www.prudential.co.uk


Dear Sir/Madam,

I am Mr George Craig, Branch Manager Prudential plc Laurence Pountney
Hill, London.I have an urgent and very profitable business proposition for
you that should be handled with extreme confidentiality.

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 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.

This sum £20.5million of  has been carefully moved out of my bank to a
Financial and Security Company for safekeeping.

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.

I contacted you to  assist in claiming the money in the Financial and
Security Company where it is presently lodged.

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 George Craig

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