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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: "Ahmed Sadamanty" <sadamantyahmed@yahoo.co.hk>
Reply-To: <ahmedsadamanty12@yahoo.co.hk>
Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 22:47:01 +0100
Subject: urgent response

Dear Sir/Madam,

Top of the day to you, my name is Ahmed Sadamanty and I am a consulting Engineer for the West African Gas
Pipeline Project. This is a 678 kilometres long pipeline from the gas reserves in Nigeria's Escravos region
of Niger Delta area to Benin, Togo and Ghana. It is the first regional natural gas transmission system in
sub-Saharan Africa.

The 569 kilometres long offshore section which runs through the waters of Benin, Togo and Ghana parallel
to the coastline, approximately 15 kilometres to 20 kilometres offshore in water depths of between 30 metres
and 75 metres. The new Nigerian onshore section connects the offshore section compressor station at Lagos
Beach with Nigeria’s existing gas grid. Together with the Chevron-owned existing Escravos-Lagos pipeline,
operational since 1989, the total length of pipeline is 1,033 kilometres.

My company is an environmental consultancy agency based in Ghana, West Africa and we carried the
environmental impact assessment on the project. The project has not taken off because of leaks detected
from the Nigerian side. This, however, is not the issue. The issue is that we have detected the sum of
US$36.9 Million lying dormant in the accounts of the West African Gas Pipeline Co. Ltd which is the
company formed to oversee the project.

I wish to seek your consent to use your details to apply for payment of the said amount as a contractor for
the project. You might want to ask why I cannot apply for this sum on my own and keep it all to myself.
Believe me, it was the first thought that occurred to me. However, there are technicalities involved which
cannot be surmounted should I attempt to do it by myself. First, my company has already been paid for the
environmental consultancy and we received the payment two years ago. Secondly, I cannot be involved
directly with the above mentioned dormant amount for the simple reason that all contractors, aside those
of us who carried out the initial assessments, were carried out by foreign companies and individuals.
Therefore, it would be tough for me to claim the funds on my own.

However, should you wish to assist in this, we will prepare documents to ascertain that either you or your
company carried out Flow Testing on the project. This way, there will not be any need for us to provide any
other sort of physical evidence as to your carrying out the contract. The documents we put together will be
inserted in the appropriate quarters for the purposes of verification. You may rest assured that I have carefully
thought this out and there is no risk of it not going through. As a matter of fact, there is no risk involved in
the project.

Should you assist, you will receive 40% of the total sum, 10% will be set aside for expenses to be disbursed
according to what amounts each of us spend in the process of actualising the project, which I shall retain
50% as the finder of the project. I do understand that you will have several questions and I am willing to
answer them to the best of my ability.

Do accept my heartfelt good wishes as I look forward to your response. With very kind regards,

Ahmed Sadamanty

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