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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: "Suleiman Barau (OON)" (may be fake)
Reply-To: <alsuleiman@katamail.com>
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2015 05:03:40 -0800
Subject: After serious thoughts, my decision

Dear Friend,

After serious thoughts, my decision to contact you personally became urgent, since I have no grudge against you, other than your Nigerian partners. I happen to be the new Deputy Governor of Operations at Central Bank of Nigeria.

Sometime ago, your partners approached me through a contact who works with one of the ministries here with a request to assist them conclude a transfer deal which required programming a transfer on your behalf.

What I gathered, is they want the use of my position and office to strategically transfer a sum; which has been supposedly dormant in the CBN suspense account for quite a while. Our agreement was that I make this happen and be rewarded with one hundred thousand initial advance payment and another one hundred thousand when I finally release to your nominated account. Having successfully programmed the transfer as agreed and your name approved amongst the list of contractors/recipients /beneficiaries to be paid for that period, the story changed and instead of standing by agreed arrangements, they implored an avoidance tactic and then resorted to threats. Well, that prompted my decision to immediately delete the transfer code, but released other payments as listed, excluding yours.

This resulted to several threatening calls which did not scare me though and then they started making frantic efforts to bribing other officials to get another approval for the transfer to you, but without success. I take 100 percent responsibility for the delay and obstructions, caused by their breach of agreement and trust. If you have doubts as to this privileged information, then consider what has transpired through the entire course of your claim process, they continue to ask you to pay one charge or the other and at the end no results and they continue to tell you to send another fee with yet no results. In very simple words, I can only say that they are just wicked. Now if you want us to work together,these are my conditions:

1: I will be entitled to twenty percent of the total sum, since it's just both of us left in the matter.

2: You will assist my son with opening an account in your domain where I will transfer my share.

3: It will be useless and mere waste of time and resources if you continue with any other person. So well conclude this process with the utmost of secrecy using only the included telephone and email details as provided.

4: You will provide me your direct telephone, mobile and your private email to facilitate easy communication between you and I.

If you find these conditions acceptable, contact me at your earliest convenience to have us finalize arrangements, so the transfer can be released to your nominated account after completion of the mandatory protocols. However, in case you're not interested, then I strongly advice you jettison the idea of receiving your funds and stop wasting your time with your so called partners. Your immediate reply is expected.

Yours truly.

Alhaji Suleiman Barau (OON)
Deputy Governor, Operations Directorate

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