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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: "John Wan" <Johnwanbankofchina@myway.com.cn>
Reply-To: wangyan69@yahoo.com.cn
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:51:57 -0600 (MDT)
Subject: PLEASE READ CAREFULLY.




Good Day,

Greetings to you and your family, I am a staff of Private Banking Services
at the Bank of China (BOC). I am contacting you concerning our customer
and, an investment placed under our banks management 3 years ago.

I would respectfully request that you keep the contents of this mail
confidential and respect the integrity of the information you come by as a
result of this mail. I contacted you independently of our investigation
and no one is informed of this communication. I would like to intimate you
with certain facts that I believe would be of interest to you.

In 2002, the subject matter; ref: bb/boc/bank/0012 came to our bank to
engage in business discussions with our Private Banking Services
Department. He informed us that he had a financial portfolio of 8.370
million United States Dollars, which he wished to have us turn over
(invest) on his behalf.I was the officer assigned to his case; I made
numerous suggestions in line with my duties as the de-facto chief
operations officer of the Private Banking Services Department, especially
given the volume of funds he wished to put into our bank. We met on
numerous occasions prior to any investments being placed. I encouraged him
to consider various growth funds with prime ratings. The favored route in
my advice to customers is to start by assessing data on 6000 traditional
stocks and bond managers and 2000 managers of alternative investments.
Based on my advice, we spun the money around various opportunities and
made attractive margins for our first months of operation, the accrued
profit and interest stood at this point at over 10 million United States
Dollars, this margin was not the full potential of the fund but he desired
low risk guaranteed returns on investments.In mid 2004, he asked that the
money be liquidated because he needed to make an urgent investment
requiring cash payments in Europe. He directed that I liquidate the funds
and had it deposited with a firm. I informed him that the bank would have
to make special arrangements to have this done and in order not to
circumvent due process, the bank would have to make a 9.5 % deduction from
the funds to cater for banking and statutory charges. He complained about
the charges but later came around when I explained to him the complexities
of the task he was asking of us. Cash movement across borders has become
especially strict since the incident of 9/11. I contacted my affiliate in
and had the funds available.

I undertook all the processes and made sure I followed his precise
instructions to the letter and had the funds deposited in a security
consultancy firm, the firm is a specialist private firm that accepts
deposits from high net worth individuals and blue chip corporations that
handle valuable products or undertake transactions that need immediate
access to cash. This small and highly private organization is familiar
especially to the highly placed and well-connected organizations. In line
with instructions, the money was deposited. He told me he wanted the money
there in anticipation of his arrival from Norway later that week. This was
the last communication we h


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