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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: Crawford Leeds <crawford_leeds@virgilio.it>
Date: Wed, 03 May 2006 22:06:13 +0200
Subject: CAN I TRUST YOU?


Dear Sir/Madam

I am a staff of 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 $22.5million Dollars
(twenty two million five hundred thousan Dollars) 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 31th, 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 relatives 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 five years the money will be
transferred into banking treasury as unclaimed funds.

We agreed that 20% 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 my colleagues trust is our
watchword in this transaction. Note this transaction
is confidential and risk free.
As soon as you receive this mail.please do your very
best to get in touch with our (FOREIGN PAYMENT
DIRECTOR)
email at: lewis_alderwood@virgilio.it or
lewis_alderwood@zwallet.com

Please note that all necessary arrangement for the
smooth release of these funds has been finalised. Our
Foreign Payment Director,Dr LEWIS ALDERWOOD.will give you
specific instruction on what todo. Please in your
response include your telephone number for easy
communication between us.

Best Regards!

Mr Crawford Leeds

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