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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: ali bello <ali_bello70039@hotmail.fr>
Reply-To: <ali_bello80@yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2007 15:48:36 +0000
Subject: PLS URGENTLY REPLY AND BACK TO ME.



FROM THE DESK OF MR. ALI BELLO. BILL AND EXCHANGE MANAGER, BANK OF AFRICA-(BOA)OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO. CONFIDENTIAL. Dear Friend , I am the manager of bill and exchange at the foreign remittance department of Bank Of Africa.(BOA) I am writing following the impressive information about you through one of my friends who runs a consultancy firm in your country. He assured me of your capability and reliability to champion this business opportunity. In my department we discovered an abandoned sum of $ 27.2m US dollars (million US dollars) . In an account that belongs to one of our foreign customer who died along with his entire family in November 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 as next of kin or relation to the deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines but unfortunately we learnt that all his supposed next of kin or relation 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 or relation 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 five 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. Thereafter and my colleagues will visit your country for disbursement according to the percentages indicated. Therefore to enable the immediate transfer of this fund to you as arranged, you must apply first to the bank as relations or next of kin of the deceased indicating your bank name, your bank account number, your private telephone and fax number for easy and effective communication and location where in the money will be remitted .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 no entertain any atom of fear as all required arrangements have been made for the transfer . You should contact me immediately as soon as you receive this letter. Trusting to hear from you immediately. YOURS FAITHFULLY. DR. ALI BELLO. BILL AND EXCHANGE MANAGER,BANK OF AFRICA .(BOA)
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