Nigerian scam

Example of Nigerian scam mailed in 1995.

The Nigerian Scam, Nigerian Scam, or 419 Scam is mostly carried out via spam. It gets its name from the article number of the Nigerian penal code that mentions this offence. While Nigeria is the nation where these kinds of scams are most often carried out, they originate from other nations as well. In 2006, 61% of Internet criminals were tracked within the United States, while 16% were tracked in the United Kingdom, and only 6% in Nigeria.

Scam

This scam consists of deluding the potential victim with a non-existent fortune and persuading them to pay or transfer a sum of money in advance, as a condition to access the promised fortune. The sums requested are usually large, but insignificant compared to the fortune that the victims expect to receive in return. The Nigerian scam can be understood as a contemporary version of the uncle's tale.

Currently many scams are carried out by telephone, with the promise of a prize or solution, the victims are suggested to carry out an operation in an ATM and provide the scammers with a certain code, and thus their bank accounts are emptied and even applying for loans in the name of the victim.

Variants

There are numerous variants of the scam. The most common are a vacant estate that the victim will acquire, an abandoned bank account, a lottery that the victim has won, a public works contract, or simply a large fortune that someone wishes to donate generously before they die. Some argue that the lottery excuse is the most common of all.

For example, the victim might receive a message such as "I am a very wealthy person residing in Nigeria and I need to move a large sum abroad discreetly. Would it be possible to use your bank account?". The sums are usually close to tens of millions of dollars. The victim is promised a certain percentage, such as 10 or 20 percent.

The proposed deal is often portrayed as a harmless white-collar crime in order to discourage the victims—the supposed investors—from calling the authorities. Scammers will send some documents with official-looking stamps and signatures, usually graphic files attached to email messages, to whoever accepts the offer.

As the exchange proceeds, the victim is asked to send money, under the guise of alleged fees, expenses, bribes, taxes or commissions. A succession of excuses of all kinds is being created, but the promise of the transfer of a million-dollar amount is always kept. Psychological pressure is often applied, for example by claiming that the Nigerian side would have to sell all their belongings and take out a loan in order to pay some expenses and bribes. Sometimes the victim is invited to travel to certain African countries, including Nigeria and South Africa.

In any case, the transfer never arrives, since the millionaire sums of money have never existed.

Common Types of Nigerian Scam

The classic Nigerian or African scam

A supposed African government, banking or oil authority asks the addressee for their bank account details in order to transfer large sums of money to it that they want to get out of the country, in exchange for a substantial commission.

If the victim accepts and after a series of contacts by email, fax or phone, they are asked to send money to cover unexpected expenses or bribes. Of course, neither the amounts advanced will ever be returned, nor will the promised benefits ever be received.

Daughter Aisha Gaddafi

Aisha Gaddafi is the daughter of former Libyan dictator Muammar el Gaddafi. She was living in the country until 2012 and at this time she is in search and capture. Nobody knows where she is. Now, it is said, she is in Oman. A new Internet scam uses her name.

This is what she says in the email: “Hello, I am Aisha Gaddafi, daughter of the last president of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi. I have a business proposal that will benefit us both. Please reply to me so I can give you more details.”

This is the message that users of the social network Twitter have received. In the issuer's image there is a photo of Aisha Gaddafi herself in a veil and a pink dress and she says she is engaged in "legal services". Spanish citizens have received this offer. Contacted with the supposed Aisha Gaddafi, she sends a text in which she explains that her father left her 2,000,000 euros at the Natwest Bank (a real bank) in London. She claims that her father was murdered and she had to flee to Oman, but that the money remains with said British entity.

He adds that he is not allowed to bank in Oman and that Natwest Bank has suggested that there may be a foreign beneficiary of his funds. Aisha promises to make a transfer of 30% of those 2 million, about 600,000 euros, to the person who helps her recover the money that the Libyan dictator left her.

The contactees who have contacted her to verify her identity, receive the answer that she cannot take photos or videos with the computer. She proposes to send the copy of her passport and her papers that her father left her to present to the London bank.

Sources in the security industry say this is a typical Nigerian Internet scam.

Gift Animals

They are advertised on pages for the sale and gift of animals. Normally they offer some breed of animal that is especially appreciated, such as a "Yorkshire Gift". The wording of the ads in languages such as Spanish are deficient, coming from automatic translations. They say they have to move and need to give away their puppies or any other animal. When someone interested answers that he accepts, they say that you have to send them the money so that they can send the animal by plane from there. They tend to send false information posing as the airport to "inform" of how they send the puppies and what the expenses are due to. When the scammer gets a victim who pays that small amount, he sends fake messages from other airports the pup was supposedly sent to in error, requesting a new money transfer in order to complete the supposed delivery.

The military captain in Iraq

They reply to advertisements for the sale of any real estate (land, houses...), requesting information. When they get a response, they send an email claiming to be soldiers who need to invest money they have obtained from oil, but as soldiers they have to give it to someone they can trust, since it is illegal for them to keep it in their personal capacity. and for this they request the data of the victim of the scam to supposedly send the money for the purchase of the property for sale. As in the other cases, at some point the scammers will ask the victim to pay some kind of expense.

The debit card with 500 million

Scammers find a victim who may be a doctor or an engineer, and offer them a deal. They claim to have a debit card with an amount of 500 million dollars and that they need an offline point of sale where to pass that card, so they send you all the key documentation, emails and that they will divide the money in half. The person will look for a point where to pass the card and when they make the attempt, the failed operation will always come out, but the card owners will say that if they pass the card and that they must deliver half of the money or if they do not have to face the consequences in that process they ask for advances of money while the person gets the gateway or dataphone, while the scammers will ask for amounts of 100 to 200 dollars for their basic expenses. When the person sees that the card will never work, she no longer contacts them and is scammed. The scammers normally create a card from the company mychoicecorporate that grants virtual cards and will be managed by Asian people, where they will be able to see the attempts made by the victim and with that they will be able to contact them as soon as they make an attempt and thus ask for the money. The most common cards are that of Konstantin Koval from Ukraine and Ahmed Ghanem from Italy.

The Lottery

The person receives an email letting them know that they have won a Lottery prize, even if they have not participated in any draw. First, the person is asked for their personal data. Then they call the person speaking in English -scammers do not usually speak Spanish-, followed by sending the person an email requesting an amount for the money transfer or check, which must be sent so that they can make the bank transfer or send a check.

The wide spread of this phenomenon in Spain has caused the National State Lottery and Gambling Agency to publish a notice about it on its website.

Uncle from America

The alleged executors of an unknown and wealthy relative announce his death and notify the recipient of his inclusion among the beneficiaries of the will. In this case, social engineering techniques are often used, for example by matching the last name of the deceased with that of the recipient. Sometimes it is ambiguously suggested that the recipient pose as a relative of the deceased, to avoid losing the inheritance, which will be divided between the lawyer/executor and the victim.

A variant of this scam is the "inheritance in life," in which someone supposedly suffering from a terminal illness, with no family, contacts the victim in order to give them money to carry out construction works. charity, helping the poor or homeless.

As in the other cases, at some point the scammers will ask the victim to pay some kind of expense.

The Spanish Prisoner

This scam has an origin much earlier than the previous ones, at the beginning of the XX century. The Spanish press refers to it like Burial Timo.

One of the scammers, the confidant, contacts the victim to explain that he is in contact with a very famous and influential person who is locked up in a Spanish prison (or according to more modern versions, in some African country) under a false identity. He cannot reveal her identity to obtain her release, as doing so would have very serious repercussions, and he has asked the informant to raise enough money to pay for her defense or bail. The informer offers the victim the opportunity to contribute some of the money, in exchange for an extremely generous reward when the prisoner is released.

However, once the money is delivered, complications arise that require more money, until the victim is no longer able or willing to give more. At that moment the scam ends and the confidant disappears.

Selling mobile phones (cell phones) on eBay

In this scam, scammers target individual eBay users who offer mobile phones. They place a very high bid at the last moment, thus winning the auction. They then contact the seller to explain that they want to send the phone to a supposed son who works as a missionary in Nigeria, and that they need to know the seller's Paypal account to pay (instead of paying directly via Paypal, through the links provided by eBay). at the end of each auction).

Then they send a message with the headers forged to appear to come from Paypal, confirming that the payment has been made. When the seller tries to verify the payment from the link in the message, they will be directed to a fake web page, appearing to be from Paypal. This page explains that for security reasons, the payment will be transferred to your account only when the shipment is made. Obviously, if you send the mobile to the buyer, you will never receive the money.

Compensation

The message informs the victim that the Nigerian State will compensate them for being a victim of the 'Nigerian Scam', even if the potential victim was not. Sums offered range from $850,000 to $1,000,000 USD.

The victim must contact an official, who will request the deposit of a sum of around 1000 dollars for bureaucratic matters of the collection of compensation.

Buying and selling a vehicle online

In this case, the victims are sought among those who have their vehicles for sale on the internet. The seller receives an email from a buyer, in a different country than the seller, who is interested in the car. The potential buyer usually agrees to buy the car without negotiating the price, seeing the car or testing it. The scammer claims that he will make the full payment of the amount in a couple of days, after which a freight forwarder (an intermediary who is in charge of transporting goods on behalf of a third person) will contact the seller to transfer the car and ship it..

When the supposed buyer makes the transfer, but then the seller discovers that it is necessary to pay an amount in commissions to "unlock" the transference. The buyer will claim to have added the commissions to the total income, with the excuse that in Africa the one who pays the commissions is the one who receives the money. To give an air of authenticity, the victim could even receive a phone call, supposedly from the bank of the buyer's country, to unblock the operation.

Other times, when the transaction is already closed, the buyer (scammer) informs the seller that in order to transfer the money to his country, the seller must pay a previous tax (usually more than 300 dollars). To gain his trust, the seller usually receives various forged documentation: passport, customs or bank documentation; You can even receive a fax or phone call with the buyer's country code.

The new love

It is one of the most common. It consists of an alleged woman, generally a native of Sudan, the Netherlands or Nigeria, sending a friend request and personal photographs to an email. The most used names of the issuer are: Edith, Kassala, Mirabel Oneil, Anita, Sharon, or Aline; and the most used last name is William, which use pages where you meet friends and compatible people to persuade. Currently, alleged women of Russian or Eastern European nationality are also used. Often, after submitting a reply, a harassing relationship is established with the scammers.

The loan

It consists of a person providing the facility so that anyone can easily access a loan, without guarantees. Taking advantage of the person's need, first the person is asked for their personal data, loan amount and duration of the loan, once these first data are sent, they reply saying that they can provide the loan at an interest between 2% and 3% annual, indicate the monthly fee to be paid and request approval, the person must respond by sending their agreement. Then they call the person speaking in English -the scammers do not speak Spanish-, then they send the person an email requesting an amount for the money transfer costs, which must be sent so that they can do the bank transfer for the money you have requested as a loan.

The Forgotten Bank Account (2019 Update)

This is a variant or update of the "Nigerian scam" traditional. In which an alleged African governmental, banking or oil authority requests the addressee's bank account details in order to transfer large sums of money to it that they want to take out of the country, in exchange for a substantial commission, alleging that someone died without will or beneficiaries, leaving a bank account with a million-dollar sum and they cannot collect it personally because they are employees of the institution.

If the victim accepts and after a series of contacts by email, fax or phone, they are asked to send money to cover unexpected expenses or bribes. Of course, neither the amounts advanced will ever be returned, nor will the promised benefits ever be received.

The novelty is that they are using names and profiles of real people who work in the institutions they mention (banks, companies, government) and that you can check with a simple Google search but they warn you that you cannot contact them because all their communications are being tracked and you should not look for them so that the operation is not discovered.

An example of this is the name of Ms.Neeta Avnash Kaur Atkar, who is a non-executive director of the Yorkshire Building Society, and who is involved as part of a scam email to move money from a dead person's bank account.

Slang for Nigerian Scammers

Scammers have adopted criminal slang with words derived from Pidgin English (a variety of colloquial English spoken in Nigeria), Igbo and Yoruba. Some of the keywords of this jargon or slang are the following:

• Akwukwo: counterfeit check.
• Come and carry: a modality in which the victim is required to travel abroad to receive his millions, an opportunity to disburse a sum in cash as a previous step. The other option is to require the victim to send the money by bank transfer or similar means.
• Guyman or Guy: individual dedicated to the scam commented in this article.
• Mugu, maga, mahi or Mayi: literally foolish fool, scam victim.
• Oga: boss, scammer who has several lower level scammers working for him, usually dedicated to heavy and repetitive tasks, such as continually sending spam, collecting responses from potential victims by separating them from automatic responses, etc. The oga is responsible for contacting victims who have already passed the first filters.
• Wash: ardid consisting of displaying to the seizure a lot of black papers pretending that they are tickets protected by a film, which would allow their passage through customs without awakening suspicions. The damper takes one of the papers and after applying a few drops of a certain liquid, the paper seems to recover the look of a hundred dollar bill (it is actually replaced by a real ticket without the victim warning it, by means of an illusionist manoeuvre). The victim will then be required to pay an amount to buy expensive chemicals and restore all the bills.

Scam baiting (hooks for scammers)

Some netizens make a hobby of setting traps for scammers and getting them to "take the bait" reversing the roles of deceiver and deceived, which in English is known as scam baiting. The expression derives from the English words scam (scam) and bait (bait, bait). This pastime involves adopting an assumed name (often with comic overtones, much to the scammer's mockery) and a free email address, pretending to be interested in the matter, then convincing the scammer to waste time and money complying. ridiculous conditions, traveling from one place to another (safari) in the hope of receiving the money, etc.

This practice is not just a hobby or a way to make fun of would-be scammers. Practitioners of scam baiting claim that the time they waste with their fake messages is time they cannot spend scamming real victims.