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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: "Edwin E. Toure" (may be fake)
Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2017 17:23:15 -0000
Subject: Re: REQUEST..

Hello Sir,

I am Mr.Edwin Embolo Toure and I write to solicit for your assistance to place your name as the beneficiary to US$4.2 (Four Million Two Hundred Thousand Dollars). This fund originally belongs to one of our foreign Customer who died in the year 2009, and has been dormant for these years without Claim as the customer did not declare his next of kin in the bank official papers.

I know, you may or may not be related to him, I have since gathered all the information about this abandoned money but has no specific target where I could get useful information about the customer, hence I make a choice from a range of possibilities to use google archive where the description I got revealed your contact, and as you have the same name with him I thought I could share this information with you with the impression to present you to the bank as the family relative to claim the money he left in our bank. Failure to do this the money will be forfeited into the government treasury as unclaimed fund.

I have also agreed that 27% of this money will be for you as foreign partner in respect to the provision of your account for the transfer, 3% will be set aside for any expenses that might occurred during the transaction and 70% will be for me, after which I shall visit your country for disbursement according to the percentage as indicated.

On your confirmation of this message and indicating your interest, I will give you more details and how we will archive this lifetime opportunity.

I await your immediate reply.

Regards,
Mr.Edwin E. Toure.

Anti-fraud resources: