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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: "Mr. Larry Douglas" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <douglaslarry01@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2017 07:28:13 +0100
Subject: Greetings My Dear Friend

Greetings My Dear Friend,

Before I introduce myself, I wish to inform you that this letter is not a hoax mail and I urge you to treat it serious.This letter must come to you as a big surprise, but I believe it is only a day that people meet and become great friends and business partners. Please I want you to read this letter very carefully and I must apologize for barging this message into your mail box without any formal introduction due to the urgency and confidentiality of this business and I know that this message will come to you as a surprise. Please, this is not a joke and I will not like you to joke with it ok. With due respect to your person and much sincerity of purpose, I make this contact with you as I believe that you can be of great assistance to me. My name is Mr. Larry Douglas, from Burkina Faso, West Africa. I work with BIB BANK (BIB BANK) as telex manager, please see this as a confidential message and do not reveal it to another person and let me know whether you can be of assistance regarding my proposal below.

I am about to retire from active Banking service to start a new life but I am skeptical to reveal this particular secret to a stranger. You must assure me that everything will be handled confidentially because we are not going to suffer again in life. It has been 10 years now that most of the greedy African Politicians used our bank to launder money overseas through the help of their Political advisers. Most of the funds which they transferred out of the shores of Africa were gold and oil money that was supposed to have been used to develop the continent. Their Political advisers always inflated the amounts before transfer to foreign accounts, so I also used the opportunity to divert part of the funds hence I am aware that there is no official trace of how much was transferred as all the accounts used for such transfers were being closed after transfer. I acted as the Bank Officer to most of the politicians and when I discovered that they were using me to succeed in their greedy act; I also cleaned some of i

Before I send this message to you, I have already diverted ($4.6million Dollars) to an escrow account belonging to no one in the bank. The bank is anxious now to know who the beneficiary to the funds is because they have made a lot of profits with the funds. It is more than Eight years now and most of the politicians are no longer using our bank to transfer funds overseas. The ($4.6million Dollars) has been laying waste in our bank and I don’t want to retire from the bank without transferring the funds to a foreign account to enable me to share the proceeds with the receiver (a foreigner). The money will be shared 60% for me and 40% for you. There is no one coming to ask you about the funds because I secured everything. I only want you to assist me by providing a reliable bank account where the funds can be transferred.

You are not to face any difficulties or legal implications as I am going to handle the transfer personally. If you are capable of receiving the funds, do let me know immediately to enable me to give you a detailed information on what to do. For me, I have not stolen the money from anyone because the other people that took the whole money did not face any problems. This is my chance to grab my own life opportunity but you must keep the details of the funds secret to avoid any leakages as no one in the bank knows about my plans. Please get back to me if you are interested and capable of handling this project, I shall intimate you on what to do when I hear from your confirmation and acceptance. If you are capable of being my trusted associate, do declare your consent to me I am looking forward to hearing from you immediately for further information: douglaslarry01@gmail.com


Thanks with my best regards.

Mr. Larry Douglas.
Telex Manager (BIB BANK) Burkina Faso.

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