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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: "DR.Mrs.Mariam Abacha." <mad12@w811hh8u7.homepage.t-online.de>
Reply-To: <mariamabach001@uku.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:14:25 -0700
Subject: PLEADING FOR YOUR HELP AND BUSINESS INVESTMENT ADVICE.

From DR. Mrs. Mariam Abacha
E-mail: mariamabach001@uku.co.uk
Alt. email: abacha.mariam20@yahoo.com
Date: 21st October, 2009.
 
 
 
 
Dear Friend,
 
 
 
         PLEADING FOR YOUR HELP AND BUSINESS INVESTMENT ADVICE.
 
It is my great pleasure to contact you with this letter, and I do hope this letter will not come to you as a surprise as we have never meet before now. I am DR.Mrs.Mariam Abacha, (wife to the former Nigerian Military  President/Head of State General Sani Abacha) who died mysteriously as a result of heart attack in the year 1998. I decided to contact you so that we can arrange with you for favorable terms of business relationship on the possibility of moving some of my family funds to your possession for investment purposes.
 
Since the death of my husband, our family and close friends have not been allowed to move freely by the subsequent and present civilian Government in Nigeria, because of the enemity that existed between my late hunsban, Gen. Abacha and the present civilian President/Head of State of Nigeria. Consequently our joint bank accounts here in Nigeria and abroad have been frozen in a very wicked manner, since the Government discovered the accounts. You may wish to know that right now our US$645Million lodged with Swiss in Zurich and Geneva has been frozen since October 1999. Another of our US$600Million with a bank in Luxembourg was blocked within April/May 2000. We also lost another US$100Million lodged with a bank in the small country of Liechtenstein. Our account with over US$700Million in a Brazilian bank was frozen in 1999, another of our joint accounts with DM450Million in a Germany based bank account were all frozen in 1999. This has made our family to have lost over US$2Billion to the Governm
 
All these loses was mainly due to the fact that we mistakenly operated these account with Abacha's family names and with our personal business names which made it possible for them to discover our funds easily in these banks.
For partnership purpose, we decided to contact you in confidence to inform you that we have in our possession the certificates of fund deposits made by my late husband, which were funds that were secretly moved out of the country. These funds involve a total cash sum of US$46M (Forty-Six Million United-States Dollars only).Which were hidden, and packaged in two (2) metal boxes and the boxes are presently being kept with a Security Deposit House in Europe as Family Treasure and the certificate of Deposit of the Treasures is in our possession and another two (2) metal boxes are in Johannesbourg-South Africa containing a total sum of US$18M (Eighteen Million United States Dollars).
 
We are appealing for your urgent assistance to move the funds to your country/private or company bank account or any country where you believe the fund will be safe. Meanwhile you can decide on which of the funds you will like to claim first so that we can know how to arrange where to meet for the conclusion of the transaction.
 
You can contact me and my son (Prince Mohammed Abacha) through the telephone number above upon receipt of your response we shall arrange for a face-to-face meeting outside Nigeria with my confidential secretary/family business consultant (DR WILLIAM SMITH) for a successful completion of the transaction.
 
We have agreed to offer you 25% of US$64M for your immense assistance to us while you will hold 75% on TRUST for us as we would like to do a good business investment in your country and also invest in your company's line of product/business.
Please you are required to treat this letter as very confidential as no other person knows about this money except me, my son (Mohammed), your very self and DR. WILLIAM SMITH. Looking forward to hearing from you as soon as possible and May God bless you as you help us at this difficult time.
 
Yours Sincerely,
DR.Mrs.Mariam Abacha.
E-mail: mariamabach001@uku.co.uk
Alt. email: abacha.mariam20@yahoo.com

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