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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: "From Ronel Iyese - LLM,LB" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <ronel.iyese@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2016 11:56:22 -0700
Subject: I need your participation?

Dear, Accept my apologies for this unexpected e-mail but my issue requires urgent attention and I need your participation. I am a legal counsel to very wealthy Chinese-American Oil Merchant named Jeffrey Chang who died some years ago in African country. This gentleman died leaving a fix deposit of 7.3 million United States Dollars with a major African Bank which I will disclose to you as you indicate your readiness to work with me. I have a very water-tight and sound plan to present you as his next-of-kin to claim his account balance based on the fact that you are a foreigner as my late client which position you easily as his rightful relation. As the account balance is released to you, we shall therefore split the funds between ourselves. Kindly get back to me through my secured and private email ronel.iyese@gmail.com; if you are interested within the next 72 hours. I will intimate you with more details soon and steps to follow as I receive your swift reply. Please do include your direct phone number in your response; I will call you to discuss the modalities with you. Sincerely, Ronel Iyese - LLM,LB

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