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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: Danladi Yousuf <danladiyousuf11__00__10021@msn.com>
Reply-To: danladiyousuf20@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 22 May 2012 01:44:39 +0200
Subject: I NEED YOUR URGENT REPLY.

 
Dear,
 
I know that this letter may come to you as a surprise, I got your contact address from the computerized search. My name is Mr Danladi Yousuf, I am the Bill and Exchange (assistant) Manager of Bank of Africa Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. In my department I discovered an abandoned sum of eleven million five hundred thousand United State of American dollars (11.5MILLION USA DOLLARS) in an account that belongs to one of our foreign customer Mr Kurt Kuhle from Alexandra Egypt who died along with his family in Siber airline that crashed into sea at Isreal on 4th October 2001.
 
Since I got information about his death I have been expecting his next of kin to come over and claim his money because we can not release it unless somebody applies for it as the next of kin or relation to the deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines, but unfortunately we learnt that all his supposed next of kin or relation died alongside with him in the plane crash leaving nobody behind for the claim. It is therefore upon this discovery that I decided to make this business proposal to you and release the money to you as next of kin or relation to the deceased for safety and subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for it and I don't want the money to go into the bank treasury as unclaimed bill.
 
Am contacting you because our deceased customer is a foreigner and a Burkinabe can not stand as a next of kin to foreign customer. The banking guidelines stipulate that the fund should be transferred into the bank treasury after 10 years if nobody is coming for the claim. I have agreed that 33% of this money will be for you as foreign partner in respect to the provision of your account for the transfer, 2% will be set aside for expenses that might occurred during the business and 65% would be for me, after which I shall visit your country for disbursement according to the percentage as indicated.
 
Please I would like you to keep this transaction confidential and as a top secret as you may wish to know that I am a bank official.
 
Yours sincerely,
Mr Danladi Yousuf.

Anti-fraud resources: