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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: "sanou bello" <sanou_bello2023@hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 08 Nov 2006 08:50:50 +0000
Subject: VERY VERY URGENT

DR.SANOU BELLO
Dear,

I am the head of Accounts and Audit Department of Bank of Africa,
Ouagadougou . I decided to contact you after a careful thought that you may
be capable of handling this business transaction which i explained below;

In my department we discovered an abandoned sum of $10.5m US dollars (Ten
million, five hundred thousand US dollars). In an account that belongs to
one of our foreign customer who died along with his entire family in 2000
in a plane crash.

Since we got information about his death, we have been expecting his next of
kin 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 but unfortunately we learnt that his
supposed next of kin(his son and wife) died alongside with him at the plane
crash leaving nobody behind for the claim .

It is therefore upon this discovery that I and other officials in my
department now decided to make this business proposal to you and release the
money to you as the next of kin (We want to present you as his busines
asociate )to the deceased for safety and subsequent disbursement since
nobody is coming for it and we don't want this money to go into the Bank
treasury as unclaimed Bill.

The Banking law and guideline here stipulates that if such money remained
Unclaimed after seven years, the money will be transferred into the Bank
treasury as unclaimed fund. The request of foreigner as next of kin in this
business is occasioned by the fact that the customer was a foreigner and a
Burkinabe cannot stand as next of kin to a foreigner .

We agree that 30% of this money will be for you as foreign partner, in
respect to the provision of a foreign account, 10 % will be set aside for
expenses incurred during the business and 60% would be for me and my
colleagues. There after I and my colleagues will visit your country for
disbursement according to the percentages indicated.

Therefore to enable the immediate transfer of this fund to your account as
arranged,you must apply first to the bank as next of kin of the deceased
customer. Upon receipt of your reply, I will send to you by fax or email the
text of the application. I will not fail to bring to your notice that this
transaction is hitch free and that you should not entertain any atom of fear
as all required arrangements have been made for the transfer.

I expect that you contact me immediately as soon as you receive this letter.

Hoping to hear from you immediately.

Yours faithfully,
DR .SANOU BELLO
Accounts & Audit Department ,
Bank of Africa

Nb.also give me your telephone and fax numbers for easy comunication with
you.

_________________________________________________________________
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