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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: "Thanks" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <KamalRupnarain@safrica.com>
Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2019 20:38:40 -0000
Subject: Your attention

I presumed you had a nice weekend.
 
My Name is Rupnarain Kamal, the Director of operations Standard Bank of South Africa. You may receive this message with surprise, but with the subject of discussion, you will understand it is for our mutual benefit. It's about the urgent need for you to receive unclaimed legitimate fund from my bank.
 
Source of fund:
 
A deposit account was opened by a customer Mr. Thomas Homas Bahia a Dutch National who was a consultant contractor with the federal ministry of mines and power in South Africa. He made a number of deposit with the bank over a period of time which has been rolled over many times upon it yearly maturity to cumulative value of $19,452,389.00, expecting Mr. Thomas Homas to come forward with further instruction on his account.
 
He never did, so as a bank, we have sent series of routine notification to his forwarding address but got no reply. I decided secretly to contact few workers left in his consulting office, only to discover that Mr. Thomas Homas Bahia and his family were involved in the Libya plane crash of 12th May 2010. You may have read or heard about the plane crash, Afriqiyah Airways Flight 771 from Johannesburg-South Africa to Libya. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/13/world/middleeast/13libya.html.
 
As a standing financial rules and regulation of South African government, If no direct or indirect claim is made on the deposit at the end of stipulated period, the fund will be tagged "Unclaimed funds" and will be forfeited to the government. So I want to present you as the beneficiary to claim the fund from the bank for joint investment in your country or we can decide to share it into two parts of 60% to me while you take 40% for using your account to pull the fund from my bank.
 
Looking forward to your positive response with your information(your name and contact address with your phone number)
Regards
Rupnarain.

Anti-fraud resources: