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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: Rasheed Abdul <rashabdul@hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 22:03:09 +0000
Subject: Dear Ken Christie, Can We Work Together?.


From Rasheed Abdul & Associates,
No 33 Howell Crescent Accra Ghana.
Email: (rasheed_abdul1967@yahoo.com)

Good Day,

My name is Barrister Rasheed Abdul, an attorney. I was the personal attorney to Late Mr. Pitt Christie, who was a Citizen of your country, On the 27th of January 2015, my client, his wife and their only son died following the bomb blast that occurred in Ghana on that date. Since then I have been making several attempts to locate any of my client's relatives but all my efforts have been unsuccessful.

As a result of this I decided to track his last name over the Internet hoping to locate any member of his family or someone who could fit in. This led to my contacting you, since you have the same last name with my client.

I have contacted you to assist in repatriating the money and property left behind before they are confiscated or declared unserviceable by the Security Company here where he had a cash deposit of US$13,000M. The Security Company has now issued me a final notice of intent to provide his next of kin or have the deposit confiscated and handed over to the government having exceeded the agreed period of deposit.

Since I have been unsuccessful in locating any one who is related to him all these while, i then decided to contact you to seek your consent to present you as the next of kin of the deceased so that both of us can retrieve the money from the Security Company and subsequently share it.

It may interest you to note that I have the necessary legal documents that will be used to backup the claim. I expect you may wonder how he made all this money. Well, he was dealing in Diamonds which he was sourcing from Sierra Leone and neighboring Liberia during the period both countries were at war. I can explain more of the details if you want me to.

Please, you will have to get back to me as soon as possible if you might be interested so that we can discuss further. If you can give me a telephone number to reach you, it will be faster.

Best regards.

Barrister Rasheed Abdul.

Anti-fraud resources: