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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: john kofi <kofijohn460@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 01:32:41 -0800
Subject: Regards.

I am a staff of one of the leading banks in Africa Ghana. I am writing
asking for your indulgence in re-profiling funds, which we want to keep
under your supervision. The Funds totaling($6,900,000)
I am only contacting you as a foreigner because this fund cannot be
approved to a local Bank here, Because the funds are in US Dollars.
belonging to one Mr. Morris Thompson, an American nationality, A
businessman, he died since 2000 in an air crash along his family .
You can confirm from this website:
http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/02/01/alaska.airlines.list/
No other person knows about this account or anything concerning it. The
account has no other beneficiary and my investigation proved to me as well
that his company does not know anything about his account. The Strategy is
to use my influence as his account manager to approve the funds in your
name.
If you are interested, forward to me your Name's, Cell
Phone/fax,Profession,Age and Country, so I can contact you. For more
details. What you need to do is to get a lawyer from High Court of Ghana.
The only thing you need in this transaction is to do the change of
ownership of the funds to your name legal. That will empower our Bank to
transfer the funds to your account within 48 hours. I wont you to stand as
a foreign Business Partner to late Mr. Morris Thompson so that you can
claim the funds out from the Bank.
Get back to me.icb_accra_gh_01@yahoo.com
Regards.
John

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