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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: James Zani <james.zani@hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 20:18:48 +0000
Subject: Please help me


Dearest,

Good day. I am James Zani 21years old, the only son of late Mr. Zokora Zani. My father was a very wealthy cocoa merchant in Ivory Coast. He was poisoned to death by his brothers on one of their village meetings over a farming land. My mother died when I was a baby, I did not know her.

Before the death of my father on March 2011 in a private hospital in Abidjan, he secretly called me by his bed side and told me that he deposited a box containing Eight million United State dollars ($8,000,000.00) in a Property Storage Company here in Ghana. He told me that he concealed this money in this box, with other valuable jewelries/ornaments and deposited it in this Company as our family valuable items, for safe keeping.

He then strongly advised me not to seek for assistance in the investment of the money from neither his lawyer nor any of his friend or relatives here, but to seek for a foreign partner from a country of my choice outside our country Ivory Coast, who will assist me in the wise investment of this money. The box is presently under the good custody of this Property storage company and my intention is to invest it in my education career. But as you may be already aware by now, our country Ivory Coast passed through political trouble that made me to flee our country to Ghana our neighboring country for safety.

Please, I am asking you to stand as my guardian and help me to retrieve this box from the storage company in Ghana and ship it to your country for investment. I have decided to continue my studies abroad. I cannot go back to my country Ivory Coast because I am hated and seen as an enemy by my father`s brothers. My life will be under a big threat and I am very much afraid they might kill me for greed, the same way they killed my father. You will also make arrangement for me to relocate from here to your country when the company has shipped the box to you, to continue my education.

Please, I am willing to give you a huge part of the total money as compensation if you would honestly assist me. I want to come over to stay with you permanently in your country, because I cannot go back to my country to continue my education and the condition of my living here is not comfortable. I plead with you to keep this matter secret for my safety, as I believe that those people who killed my father are still after me.

I will tell you more details as soon as I get your positive response to help me.I wait for your response.

God bless you.
James Zani




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