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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: Antonio Guterres <aguterres454@gmail.com>
Reply-To: westernunionoffice549@gmail.com
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2022 14:19:56 -0700
Subject: REMAIN BLESS

Hello Dear,

How are you.hopefully you are fine.i wish to inform you that i have sent
you $5000 us dollars through
western union money transfer as we have been instrustacted to transfer to
the total sum of $3.8m dollars to you) via
western union money transfer from this state at florida usa,


i have been trying to send you an email since two days ago from western
union money transfer payment details.but the message
keep on returning to me and i don't really know the purpose.so i decided to
email you again today with all the western union money
transfer details so that you can pick up the money from any western union
office within your locality.with the MTCN and sender's
name.Therefore you can pick up $5000 us dollars daily.united states dollars
to enable us send you another $5000 to you by
tomorrow.as you can see we can only send you $5000 us dollars a day.please
you can copy this information and go to nearest
western union money transfer to pick up your $5000 us dollars and call me
to send you another payment by tomorrow,
manager.Dr Larson David.call or email once you picked up these $5000 us
dollars. Here is western union money transfer
details to retrieve the $5000 us dollars.


Sender's First Name: ____ Larson
Sender's second name: ____ David
Sender / State: Florida
Amount: $ 5,000
MTCN number: ___ # 974-238-3454

I'm waiting for your call when you pick up these $ 5,000. Please send me
your direct phone number because I will call you when we send
any payment for the information. Note that we really need your current
direct phone, so once we've made a payment, we'll call you for MTCN.
Yours in service
Email
Mr. Larson David

Anti-fraud resources: