African con-artist warning!

This is also a common practice here in South Africa as well. It's a scam originally from Nigeria known as 4-1-9(whatever it means). These syndicate operate by sourcing email addresses in forum like this and promise you heaven & earth. Due to the fact of greed, some fellows fall into the trap & end up being kidnapped & a ransom demanded in return of being freed. A number of arrests have been successful in South Africa, whereby it's always discovered the victims are from Europe & perpertrators are Nigerians. The only way to avaid this is by simply deleting such emails. NEVER EVER TRY YOUR LUCK
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Regards,
Muzi Mohale
TravelWires cc
www.accommodate.co.za
www.bid2load.com
www.travelwires.com

I send a one liner telling them I am really interested. They reply at length I then say I must consult my co-directors and need more information They send more I then say I have received a circular from ##### (fake yahoo address) saying that ## (NAME OF SENDER) is in fact running a worldwidepaedophile ring and that on no circumstances are they to contact me again. It always works - and the more people who do this the greater the likelihood it will carry on working.
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chris
www.oxford-conferences.com

Hi everyone, Just to add my tuppence worth - these Nigerian money scams have been going on and off for a good while - it just seems that fraudsters from other West African countries and Zimbabwe are also trying the same trick. I think the 419 refers to a Nigerian law dealing with fraud - there was a programme on BBC a few years ago outlining how the scam actually worked and unfortunately there are some very greedy (and guillible) people who fall for this nonsense which is precisely what these fraudsters rely on to be successful... As outlined in previous posts, if it's too good to be true, it usually is and just hit the delete key... Caroline Lashley The Editor's Office, London theeditorsoffice@yahoo.co.uk Tel/fax: 0845 125 9493
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Caroline Lashley
The Editor's Office, London

Email: theeditorsoffice@yahoo.co.uk

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Hi , i get around 2 -3 of these every day, and they are blinking annoying!! just a word of warning, I only used to get about 1 every 2 weeks, until I had the bright idea of bouncing back there email "as address unkown"! then I was bombarded with the dam things, as cjlashley says just delete them, love chocpiggy

I send them the following hyperlink with the messaga that God knows what they are doing! http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=nigerian+scam+letters&btnG=Google+Search
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dfc

I don't know it ive every got one of them. But a scam I usally get is: A letter address to my late dad saying he has money that has not been claimed. When I open it up its all hand wrote and big red letters on the everlope "urgent". But when you look close to the letter its hard to spot but it just printed off not handed wrote. I get one every month. usally £30,000 waiting for you, heres your password. But when you look close its £5 per min. PR*CKS. Altho i've never fell for it. cheers

419 is the code used by the CIA (I think - I know its one of the American law enforcement offices) for the crime report. If you're only getting a couple a day you're lucky, I get around 20! Whatever you do don't reply to spam, ever. Just delete it. If you reply they know that the address is alive and you will see an increase in the amount of spam you get. As for the 419 scam they are particular bad. At lest one person has been killed as a result of this scam and several have been taken hostage. The idea of the scam is to eventually get you to go to, normally, Nigeria and collect the money. At which point you are taken hostage and ransomed. On a lighter note you might want to read this [url]http://spl.haxial.net/nigerian-fraud/[/url]. Recognize the guy in the passport []
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Graham Smith
--- Shallow Sea Aquatics ---
An Aquatics Community and Shop in One

Hi all.....Longtime no chat!!! Anyway, as you were saying.....Yes these scams are going on a reg basis but please let me tell you that I advise you not to respond to anything at all from these people as once they have contact detaiols...they turn very keen... And with regards to 4-1-9 this is the kind of gang they work within...it is very sim to the mafia and triads except for the fact that each one of the cells work independent but feed back to each other....These guys are hardcore and very nasty + they have one hell of an international network in place... 22 people were taken for £55k in this country and in the states a lady was taken for $2.1m. I tries to get within this group for a TV docu and followed the line to the point of having $18k to be takien to Stole, near amsterdam.....Then I found out, from a friend, how nasty these guys were as well as the fact that not only do they take your money BUT once you deliver...they may kidnap you and try and get more!!!!!!! Any emails you get...delete....

New spin on the old 419 scam BY RODNEY WEIDEMANN, ITWEB JOURNALIST [Johannesburg, 6 October 2003] - West Africa's notorious 419 scammers – who so often lure gullible people into their clutches by offering exorbitant amounts of money in order to gain access to the victim's bank details – appear to have updated their tactics. Reuters reports that the scammers' latest tactics involve tapping e-mail networks and posing as major London banks. Britain's National Criminal Intelligence Service has reported that it is investigating a new technique by swindlers, which sees them sending e-mails under the name of a top executive from one of the UK's bigger banks, from an authentic-looking e-mail address. A bogus e-mail, purportedly from an executive at Barclays and bearing an address that appeared to belong to the bank, was recently sent out across the UK and abroad. The mail requested permission from the victim for the bank to temporarily park $30 million in the recipient's bank account in return for a large share of the money, in much the same way as the original 419 scam claimed to need an external account in order to get vast sums of money out of any one of a number of African countries. Barclays is not the only British bank that has been targeted by the fraudsters, with Lloyds TSB reporting that it has been targeted by a similar scam, in which fraudsters sent mass e-mails from a phoney Lloyds account, referring recipients to a fake Lloyds Web site. The site asked users to enter bank account and credit card details, according to Lloyds spokesman, Emile Abu-Shakra. He says it was shut down by police the same day it was discovered and that none of the bank's customers lost money on it. The intelligence service says that although it is unclear who is behind the Barclays e-mail scam, it bore the hallmarks of West African fraudsters, especially Nigerians, who pioneered schemes using traditional mail and counterfeit letterhead stationery decades ago. "It's clearly a development and a refinement," says a law enforcement official, adding that fraudsters had already tricked Britons out of millions of pounds – with each victim last year losing on average an estimated £22 000 (around R250 000). "Funnily enough, a lot of very, very rich people fall for this type of scheme, particularly very high net-worth individuals who are usually self-made, possibly because these people are accustomed to taking the sort of risk that you or I are not prepared to take," says the official. He says the banks had become a target because of their high profile and the trust they evoke, meaning that victims were more likely to fall for the scam. -www.itweb.co.za
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Regards,
Muzi Mohale
TravelWires cc
www.accommodate.co.za
www.bid2load.com
www.travelwires.com