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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: <larry@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: <larrijames1@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2012 15:19:47 -0000
Subject: TO YOUR HONOR

United Nations/
World Bank Group.
website:http://www.un.org/sg/biography.shtml
Chairman Committee. Mr.Larry James.
Email: larrijames1@gmail.com 
Attn: Please,      
My name is Mr. Larry James, the chairman of the World Bank/United Nations delegates sent to African for auditing on foreign African reserve accounts for controling the issue of money Laundering, Scam, and Bank Fraud with the African Government that has being going on. I am presently in Nigeria now for this exercise.
Pardon me for not having the pleasure of knowing your mindset before making you this offer and it is utterly confidential and genuine by virtue of its nature. I write to solicit your cooperation in allowing this sum US$20M be recieved into your account for our mutual benefits.
This fund was stashed out from the funds we recovered during our auditing with African Banks last year. So far, I have already submitted an approved end of the year report to the World Bank and United Nations by December and I have since then, placed this amount on a Non-Investment Account without a beneficiary with International Commercial Bank Plc Accra Ghana waiting for this time when the ICB will be having their International pay out bills. And I seek your partnership to humbly and sincerely work with me have this fund received into your account for our mutual benefits.      
Upon your response, I will make arrangement with an insider of the Bank to configure your name on the Central Computer database under better arrangement as the holder of the Non-Investment Account and I will then guide you on how to apply to the head office for the Account Closure/ bank-to-bank remittance of the funds to your designated bank account.
Note: This Ten-man committee was appointed after the meeting held by the United Nation, African Union, IMF and African Apex Bank. Our assignment is to audit every African Bank foreign reserve accounts to know how much they are fairing with the economy standard and to know how much they owe foreigners of their contracts and inheritance fund which is the most reason we are assigned for this job including the foreign individual petitions and reports against African Government as towards the delays in receiving their contract and inheritance funds after investment of much efforts.      
Why I have contacted you is because we came across a detailed fund claim in your name without good measures and we were able to discover that this fund does not originally belonged to you and we also trying to believe that some people may wanted to use your name to claim some funds with African Government but due to their inabilities, they were unable to realize this fund before we start work.      
Not withstanding, we were able to recovered and return some funds to the United Nations after studding some foreign payment files, which most of their claims are not genuine and clearly stated since they have not good source of origin in the case of some malpractices by some Government officials to siphon Government funds with the help of their foreign partners,      
Therefore, since this fund is already committed in your name, I would want your confidential cooperation to have this fund wired into your account and after that, we will share the proceeds 50-50. If you concur with this proposal, Reply ASAP.      
Thanks,      
Chairman Committee Mr.Larry James.
United Nations.      
World Bank Group.
 

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