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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.Aliu Diko" <m.aliudiko@gmail.com>
Reply-To: m.alidiko@yahoo.fr
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2010 02:26:48 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: hi


Dear Friend,
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.Aliu Diko, from Ouagadougou Republic of BURKINA FASO, West
Africa.
Presently I work in the Bank as telex manager. I have been searching for
your contact since you left our country some years ago .
I do not know whether this is your correct email address or not because I
only used your name initials to search for your contact in the internet .In
case you are not the person I am supposed to contact, please see this as a
confidential message and do not reveal it to another person but if you are not
the intended receiver, do let me know whether you can be of assistance
regarding my proposal below because it is top secret.I am about to retire from
active Bank service to start a new life but I am sceptical 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 was 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 their banking records from the Bank files and no one cared to
ask me because the money
was too much for them to control. They laundered over $5b Dollars during the
process.
As I am sending this message to you, I was able to divert more than Twenty
 five Million Dollars ($ 25.m) to an escrow account belonging
to no one in the bank.
The bank is anxious now to know who is the beneficiary to the funds 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 ($ 25.m) Twenty five Million Dollars has been lying waste but I don't want to retire
from the bank without transferring the funds to a foreign account to enable me
share the proceeds with the receiver. 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 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 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 also to grab my
own but you must keep the details of the funds secret to avoid leakages as no
one in the bank knows about the funds. Please supply me the following:
Your current contact address and Telephone Numbers.I shall intimate you on
what to do when I get your confirmation and acceptance..
If you are capable of being my trusted associate,
do declare your consent to me.
Waiting for your urgent response.
Yours Faithfully,
Mr.Aliu Diko.

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