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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: "paul omole" <paul_8@yenimail.com>
Reply-To: mrpaulomole@reenet.de
Date: Fri, 23 Jun 2006 13:59:13 +0300
Subject: Please Reply

From Mr.Paul Omolonle.

I write you this mail which i pray should be urgently replied.I am Mr.Omolonle Paul, a staff of an international Bank, lagos. I am writing following an oppurtunity in my office that will be of immense benefit to both of us In my department we discovered an abandoned sum of $38 Million usd,(united state dollars) in an account that belongs to one of our foreign customer who is late now .He is an American who unfortunately lost his life in the plane crash of YEAR 2000, 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 as a relative to the deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines.

After careful investigation and due enquiries, we learnt that his supposed next of kin was his only daughter, who also died along with him in the plane crash leaving nobody with the knowledge of this fund behind for the claim. It is as a result of this discovery that my few colleagues and I in this department decided to make business with you and release the money to you as the next of kin or beneficiary of the funds. We however do not want this money to go back into government treasury as unclaimed bill. We agreed that you will be rewarded with a large sum out of the total amount as the foreignpartner, while the balance will be for my colleagues and I.

Note this transaction is confidential and risk free.As soon as you receive this mail you should contact me by return mail whether or not you are willing to enter into this deal. In the event that you are not interested, I sincerely ask that you disregard this email and tell no one about it. I am very careful on truncating my banking career should you mention this to someone else. I hope you can be trusted in this regard. 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 in your response, include your telephone and fax numbers for easy communication and then I would be letting you have my phone number too. I expect your reply immediately on this email

Best regards.

Mr. Omolonle Paul



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