Victims Of The Nigerian Scams In The News
419 scammers take US con artist for $750,000
By Lester Haines
A businessman in Winona, Minnesota, has been taken for a cool $750,000 by Nigerian 419 scam artists, the Winona Daily News reports.
Nothing new there, you might think, but $250,000 of the cash did not actually belong to victim Carl Fratzke. Incredibly, Fratzke had pulled a scam of his own and defrauded seven friends to raise the capital. The balance came from his own savings.
Tempted, as ever, by promises of riches beyond the wildest dreams of avarice, Fratzke asked chums to invest in a scheme whereby he would buy gloves and sell them to Wal-Mart at a hefty profit. He promptly sent the cash straight to the 419 scammers.
"They sent me a facsimile of the check they were going to send me," Fratzke later testified before a presumably astounded judge. "They said: 'This is coming'."
Well, it didn't, and now Fratzke faces sentencing on 31 March on "two counts of theft by swindle and one count of theft by check". If he's lucky, the beak will hand down a stiff sentence. Jail is probably the only place he'll be safe from his friends and investors - and his own stupidity.
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150 Brits x 419 fraud = £8.4m
By Lester Haines
You'd like to think that after all the publicity generated around Nigerian 419 advance fee fraud, the boys from Lagos would be pretty well out of business. Sadly not.
According to figures from the UK's National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) - quoted in Scotland on Sunday - no less than 150 Britons got burned last year alone for a total of £8.4m.
That's a sobering average of £56,675 per victim. One of the latest is a man from Fife who, although losing (a comparatively modest) £7,000, luckily did not share the fate of the globetrotting chap who travelled to Africa to collect his booty, only to be beaten and tortured.
UK police are not, happily, standing idly by while this outrageous scam continues to sucker the stupid and greedy.
A London-based unit is tracking emails and attempting to sucker the fraudsters into revealing themselves for the benefit of waiting officers.
We wish them luck, but suggest that an alternative method might be to jail anyone idiotic enough to believe that someone from West Africa is going to give you millions of pounds in the first place. Or perhaps naming and shaming would be sufficient deterrent. ®
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Woman falls for Nigerian scam, steals $2.1m from law firm
By Lester Haines
A bookkeeper for Michigan law firm Olsman Mueller & James has been taken for $2.1m by Nigerian 419 fraudsters, the Detroit Free Press reports.
The 59-year-old woman received a fax from one Dr. Mbuso Nelson of the Ministry of Mining in Pretoria, South Africa, asking for help in getting a cool $18m transferred to the US.
We all know what comes next: the hapless victim set up a bank account, only to be told that certain expenses had to be met.
Fuelled by greed and stupidity in equal measure, the woman dutifully wired huge sums to accounts in South Africa and Taiwan. Cue popping champagne corks in expensive Lagos restaurants.
Naturally, the promised $4.5m commission never arrived. This proved a tad embarrassing for the victim, who had funded the entire operation with the contents of her employers' bank account. Incredibly, her bosses only discovered the cupboard was bare when a cheque for $36,000 bounced.
The woman now faces up to three years' jail on 13 counts of wire fraud. Luckily for her, sheer idiocy will not be a factor in sentencing.
Meanwhile, other participants in the drama have been setting new benchmarks in superlatives of incredulity. "It's unbelievable that she fell for this," gasped investigating FBI Special Agent James Hoppe, echoing the sentiments of Jules Olsman, president of Olsman Mueller & James. "This is just absolutely beyond description," he said. ®
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Nigerian 419: White farmers up the ante
By Lester Haines
It's all go on the 419 fraud front this week as the latest email circular breaks all previous records of riches beyond the wildest dreams of avarice. Not to outdone by the Nigerians, the white Zimbabwean farmers have rustled up an impressive $46 million dollars for immediate transfer to an honest and trustworthy partner abroad.
Their contact man is Max Crawford - a good, solid Anglo name to be sure - although Max seems to have learnt his English in downtown Lagos. Still, let's give him the benefit of the doubt. It can't be easy spamming half of the western world while enraged war veterans are firing AK47s through your office window. Yup, this one looks legit alright:
Dear Sir,
I am Max Crawford, the secretary of Commercial farmers Union (CFU) OF Zimbabwe. After the last general elections in my country where the incumbent president Mr. Robert Mugabe won the presidential election, the government has adopted a very aggressive land reforms programme. This programme is solely aimed at taking the land owned by white African farmers for redistribution to black Africans. This programme has attracted worldwide condemnation from world leaders including British Prime Minister, Mr.Tony Blair and also forced several white farmers to flee the country for fear of victimization and physical abuse.
A Few weeks ago, our headquarters in Harare was attacked and looted by black protesters and in the process burnt down the whole building. Fortunately, they did not get access to the huge funds kept in the strong room which belong to the co-operation. This cash was kept at the secretariat rather than in the bank for fear of seizure by the government.
Now I have the funds in my possession and would need to get it Invested in a viable business venture in Europe. The cash in question is US$46Million dollars.
Once I can get your commitment and sincerity of investing this fund on our behalf then I would proceed to get the funds freighted to Europe, where you would be required to pick it up for investment for us.
You do not have anything to worry about as I would undertake all Charges involved in freighting the funds to Europe, and the business proposal is 100% legal and risk free.
You would be adequately compensated for all your effort once we Have gotten the funds to Europe. Please get back to me if you can be of assistance and I would want our correspondence to be via email as most phone lines of white farmers are bugged by the government. Please reply to the following email addresses. William Hamilton ESQ (PRESIDENT CFU ZIMBABWE)
williamhamilton@eircom.net
williamhamilton_2@lycos.com
I expect 100% confidentiality and your prompt response to this mail so as to proceed.
Kind regards,
Max Crawford.
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E-mail scam 'ruined my life'
By David Green
BBC News Online, Manchester
Ann is a lot more wary these days when she opens her e-mails. Losing £30,000 to internet fraudsters has made her that way.
Ann travelled to Amsterdam to give the fraudsters £4,700 in cash
She is one of the many victims of cruel e-mail scams which target the compassionate and the greedy.
And the 58-year-old teacher - who will be in debt for the rest of her life - is an example of how this could happen to anybody.
Ann, who lives in the North West, now admits she was foolish to travel to Amsterdam with £4,700 in cash in the belief she was helping the wife of a former president of the Philippines retrieve her stolen fortune.
She said she thought she was helping a victim of "political oppression" and hoped to spend her share of the money - about £3m - on church charities, orphanages and paying off debts.
But she was faced with escalating demands for cash, including a "tax" payment of more than £100,000.
The lady in the Dutch embassy told me she was almost 100% certain that it was fraud - I really had believed that it was true
Ann, who is still too scared of the gang to give her full name, said: "I had done a bit of research at the local library and had checked out the circumstantial details as to what had happened in the Philippines and the details were as the lady outlined.
"Of course I felt sorry for her and I wanted to help her, being the kind of person who helps people who are in trouble of one kind or another."
She agreed to travel to Amsterdam where she would pay a fee to a firm who had been "looking after" the fortune.
But when she arrived and met the gang - a Dutchman and his African associates - she was told she needed to pay a further £23,450 to obtain a certificate to allow her to take the full amount of money out of The Netherlands.
Unable to find the money herself, she persuaded a relative to lend her the cash, which she then transferred to the gang.
But once the money was transferred, she was told she needed to pay an extra £126,000 in "tax".
'Didn't look right'
It was only at this point that she became suspicious.
She said: "I asked them to send me a faxed copy of this tax demand and it was only at that point that I actually realised it didn't look right.
"It didn't look like a British tax demand and I guessed it wouldn't look like a Dutch one either.
"I contacted the Dutch embassy in London and I also spoke to a Dutch lawyer and both of them said it didn't look anything like a Dutch tax demand.
"The lady in the Dutch embassy told me she was almost 100% certain that it was fraud.
It could happen to anybody - it is very plausible
"I had a dreadful day - I really had believed that it was true."
Since then she has had to fight to rebuild her life. Her modest house has been remortgaged so she can start paying back her relative, with whom she admits her relationship has been badly damaged.
She said: "He is not a rich person who could easily afford it. He just lent me everything he had and he has been in very serious difficulties since then.
Warn others
"I feel really bad about it - I hated asking him for money in the first place, but I really did think it would work out for the best for both of us.
"But I can't raise enough to pay him back and it will take me all the rest of my life to pay him back, I should imagine."
She says she holds out little hope of ever retrieving her money or of the police catching the fraudsters who swindled her.
But she said she wanted her experience to serve as a warning to others.
She said: "I just want to warn other people that the documents look very realistic, the phone calls seem realistic and it is as if you are dealing with straightforward people.
"It could happen to anybody - it is very plausible."
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Fraudsters turn to the net...
Credit card fraud is on the increase in the US
Fraudsters are increasingly using the internet - instead of mail and telephone - to carry out their cons, according to new US figures.
The great thing about the internet is it's easy to find other information, and what consumers should do is cross-check
Federal Trade Commission
Identity theft - where fraudsters run up credit card bills in someone else's name - remains most common consumer fraud.
It accounting for 43% of the 380,000 complaints logged by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
But the FTC also found con-artists were increasingly using bogus websites and "spam" e-mail to lure their victims.
Shadow site
Last month, BBC News Online told how the world's largest online auction site eBay had been targeted by fraudsters using a shadow site to steal credit card details.
The scam involved sending e-mails to customers asking them to log on to a Florida-based website - ebayupdates.com - and re-submit their financial details.
In a statement eBay said it "never asks its users for their user ID and password."
"Fraud constitutes less than 0.01% of all transactions that take place on the site," it added.
The shadow site has been taken down.
Cross-checking
Howard Beales, head of the FTC's consumer-protection bureau, said consumers should make sure they are dealing with a reputable seller before giving out credit-card numbers or other sensitive information online.
"The great thing about the internet is it's easy to find other information, and what consumers should do is cross-check.
"If this product is telling you it's the cure for cancer, then go to the National Cancer Institute's site," said Mr Beales.
According to the FTC, 47% of consumer-fraud complaints that were not identity theft were internet-related.
This was an increase of 31% in 2000.
Service providers
Internet auction fraud was the most common online-only complaint, accounting for 13% of complaints received.
This was followed by online retailers that did not deliver what they promised.
Disputes with internet service providers, credit-protection schemes and advance-fee loans also generated a lot of complaints.
Advance fee fraud
Foreign-money schemes - such as the Advanced Fee or 419 fraud - where people are sent an unsolicited fax or e-mail offering a share of any cash successfully moved out of Africa - generated 4% of complaints.
Anyone taking the bait in such a fraud is asked to pay increasingly large sums to supposedly bribe uncooperative officials and to smooth the passage of the cash, which never materialises.
Spoof websites are increasingly being used instead of fake banking certificates to lend such cons an air of authenticity.
Greater awareness
In total, US consumers reported losses of more than $343m in 2002 to fraud, a sharp increase from the previous year, the FTC said.
Some of the increase may be down to greater awareness and reporting of offences by consumers.
But while it might be impossible to tell if the total number of consumer scams has increased, Mr Beales said, the proportion of those that take place online had definitely grown.
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Singaporean to lose home after
falling for Nigerian Internet scam
Agence France Presse
November 3, 2003
Singapore
A SINGAPOREAN family man who dreamed of getting rich will have to sell his home after falling for a multi-million dollar Nigerian e-mail scam, the Straits Times reported Monday.
The man, who asked to be identified only as Eric, told the paper he had lost almost S$330,000 (US$190,751) he made in payments to the Nigerian fraudster who offered him a share in a non-existent $25-million inheritance payout.
"I'm almost 50. This was my only hope of ever getting rich," the father of four told the newspaper. "I was greedy and I have to pay now for my greed."
Nigeria has become notorious around the world as the centre of a massive e-mail fraud industry in which dupes are enticed to part with large sums of money in return for handling large illegal money transfers from Nigeria.
Eventually, the money transfers do not take place and the dupes find they have lost the money they paid out to facilitate the deal. In Nigeria, the operation is known as a '419', after the part of the Nigerian criminal code dealing with fraud. The present government has pledged repeatedly to crack down on the criminal gangs perpetrating the scams but has yet to do so.
Eric told the Straits Times he received an e-mail from a man claiming to be the manager of the Diamond Bank of Nigeria offering him a 30 percent share of a $25 million inheritance payment, in return for which Eric had to transfer first S$17,000 to a lawyer to handle the transaction and then another $18,000 for the attorney's travelling expenses.
He was then asked to come up with more money including a further $129,000 dollars, to facilitate the deal and flew to London where he was shown a large amount of allegedly counterfeit money.
"After seeing the money and coming so close to getting it, I was determined not to give up halfway," said Eric. But he was duped. "My wife said I use the handphone so much that my brain is damaged. I think she's right. She said my eyes can see only the dollar signs," Eric said.
The fraud victim now owes the bank $40,000 and has borrowed $230,000 from his friends and has put up his house for sale.
Eric said he was desperate after his monthly salary was cut in half to $3000 dollars this year.
"I thought I could give my family a better life, but look what has happened now," he said.
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Farmers victims of Nigerian scam
About 200 Mid Canterbury farmers have become the latest unwitting victims of a Nigerian investment scam.
The farmers are out of pocket after the director of an Ashburton stock firm used millions of dollars of their money to buy into the scam.
Peter Bell allegedly used $3.5 million of their money when he saw an opportunity to get rich quick. The company funds he invested are now lost and the company has gone bust, despite repeated endless publicity and warnings about the scam.
Liquidator Warwick Ainger said the judge described the case as just another foolish Nigerian investment. Ainger said he believes such off-shore investments are "about greed".
Bell took money from Cuttle and Isaacs accounts after he and a mate were sucked in by the fraudsters, leaving about 175 creditors.
"They were told they would get a phenomenal return something like 10 times what they'd invested so they went along with it," counsel Willie Palmer said.
Bell went along with the deal even after being asked for a money "laundering" fee.
The disgraced director is trying to recover the lost funds which a high court judge has ordered must be repaid within 14 days.
If the money does not surface by the end of September bankruptcy proceedings are expected to begin.
The Serious Fraud Office is also investigating.
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Nigerian Victims
