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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: =?iso-8859-1?q?innocent=20bekou?= <innocentbekou2006@yahoo.fr>
Date: Wed, 26 Apr 2006 10:37:24 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: From Innocent for the family


J'ai une nouvelle adresse mailVous pouvez maintenant m'écrire à : innocentbekou2006@yahoo.fr

Dearest One,

I am innocent Bekou from Ivory Coast, I need your help to transfer sum of 4.5 million US dollars my late father kept in a deposit with a bank. I am the next of kin. My late father was killed by the Rebels during last three months Reble attack in our country. My late father was former minister of Works and development. I am here with my mother with my only junior brother. In fact we want to move out from our country after transfering our money into any safe bank account you can give to us as we do not have good security here . Please reply me urgently. Please we need your immediate help to invest our money into real estate & big hotel business being my mother's plans.

Yours family in one God,

Innocent for the family

- innocent bekou


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