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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.

 

 

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

Fraud email example:

From: "Nadia Arafat" <nadia_226@voil.fr> (may be fake)
Date: Sat, 11 Mar 2006 01:46:48 +0800
Subject: RE: Read and reply

>From Nadia Arafat
202, Kamel El Shennawi street,
Garden City, Cairo, Egypt.

Attention dear,

In The Name of Allah, The Most Gracious, The Most Merciful
Aselamu Aleikum.

Forgive my indignation to contact you through this medium without prior
notice. I am Mrs Nadia Arafat, the wife of late Fathi Arafat brother to
Yasser Arafat) who just died on Wednesday 1st December, 2004. In military
hosptal cairo egypt.

It did not take more than 48hours after his demise when I was contacted by
his security firm in Asia as his next of kin. Before his death, he entrusted
many documents to me and told me to let things be since he knew that he
would die considering his cancer ailment. One of those documents bore
certificate of deposit from the said security firm that contacted me in
London.

Hence I`m requested to correspond with them in the shortest possible time to
avoid the demurrages that will accrue following the death of my husband as
nobody except me can attend to such transaction. Thus I`m contacting you so
that you can help me to retrieve this clasified deposit from the security
firm and for safe keeping pending when it will be convienient for me to
travel out of Egypt. All eyes are on me now and as such I will not like to
attract any attention now either by monetary transactions or by
international travel.

As a result, I request you to reply to me as soon as possible so that we
shall know the way forward and how to streamline issues and procedures
towards the successful retrieval of this clasified deposit which bear the
sum of US$ 25.5 Million, I`m quite convinced that this classified deposit
is enough for any investment of ones choice in a life`s time.

Endeavour to keep this mail very secret even if you are not keen to
cooperate with me as I beseeched you.

Please send your reply to my private e-mail address arafat-nadia@excite.com

Regards

Mrs Nadia




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