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Advance fee fraud, often also known as the Nigerian money transfer fraud, Nigerian scam or 419 scam after the relevant section of the Nigerian Criminal Code that it violates[1], is a fraudulent scheme to extract money from victims after making them believe they will get an immense fortune. Victims are requested to pay an upfront fee before their purported fortune is released.
These scams have come to be associated in the public mind with Nigeria due to the massive proliferation of such confidence tricks from that country since the mid-eighties, although they are often also carried out in other African nations, including Togo, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Benin, Liberia, Sierra Leone and South Africa, and increasingly from European cities with large West African populations, notably London, Amsterdam and Madrid, and lately also Dubai (United Arab Emirates) and even Canada.
Originally, the schemers contacted mainly heads of companies and church officials. However, the use of e-mail spam and instant messaging for the initial contacts has led to many private citizens also being targeted, as the cost to the scammers to make initial contact is much lower.
The United States Federal Trade Commission has issued a consumer alert about the Nigerian scam. It says: "If you receive an offer via email from someone claiming to need your help getting money out of Nigeria — or any other country, for that matter — forward it to the FTC at spam@uce.gov." The United States Department of the Treasury advises "You may also email the 419er documents, especially any banking data they may have given you, marked as described above, to Task Force Main in DC 419.fcd@usss.treas.gov; that is also acceptable."
The origin of the 419 scam is currently debated. Many critics believe that the scam slowly began in Nigeria, possibly developing from earlier forms of fraud practised by Nigerian petroleum companies, criminal gangs, and government agencies in the 1970s or 1980s. The modern 419 scam well predated the widespread use of e-mail, and earlier variants were often sent via fax or even Telex. Others believe that the scam was a combination of different frauds in the Igboland region, some hundreds of years old. The first scams involved lucrative oil contracts and other related frauds. The scam did not employ a significant number of people until the rise of the Internet. After the turn of the millennium, the scam proliferated rapidly and employed much more people than it did in the 1990s. Today, it may employ as many as 250,000 people. Until about 2001, the scammers were located primarily in Lagos, Aba, Owerri, and Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
Most, though not all, 419 fraudsters are ethnically Igbo, the predominant ethnic group of southeast Nigeria. A lot of 419 jargon is Igbo in origin, and scambaiters are widely taking advantage of the Igbo language in their scambaits (such as insulting a scammer in his native language). It is not clear why the fraud is specifically an Igbo phenomenon, but it may well be one of the consequences of Igbo oppression in modern Nigerian society. After the Biafran Civil War in the late 1960s, the Igbo homeland had been severely ravaged by war, leaving the Igbo people desperately impoverished. Unemployment and poverty struck hard, making crime a more lucrative temptation for certain unemployed young men. After the war, many became employed in the government and petroleum industries, where the 419 scams had probably sprung up.
The 'investors' are contacted, typically with an offer of the type "A rich person from the needy country needs to discreetly move money abroad, would it be possible to use your account?". The sums involved are usually in the millions of dollars, and the investor is promised a large share, often forty percent. The proposed deal is often presented as a "harmless" white-collar crime, in order to dissuade participants from later contacting the authorities. The operation is professionally organized in Nigeria, with offices, working fax numbers, and often contacts at government offices. The investor who attempts to research the background of the offer will usually find that all pieces fit perfectly together.
If they then agree to the deal, the other side will first send several documents bearing official government stamps, seals etc., and then introduce delays, such as "in order to transmit the money, we need to bribe a bank official. Could you help us with a loan?" or "In order for you to be allowed to be a party to the transaction, you need to have holdings at a Nigerian bank of $100,000 or more" or similar. More delays and more additional costs are added, always keeping the promise of an imminent large transfer alive. Sometimes psychological pressure is added by claiming that the Nigerian side, in order to pay certain fees, had to sell all belongings and borrow money on their house.
In any case, the promised money transfer never happens. The money or gold does not exist.
The spams are normally sent from Internet cafes equipped with satellite Internet. The addresses to be sent to and bodies of the mails copied and pasted from memory sticks into the webmail interface. Some London-based gangs have been known to use spamware on laptops which they surreptitiously connect to the cafe's network, but even this software is notably out-of-date. While this method is significantly more labour-intensive per mail sent than others, it offers near-total anonymity and allows them to very quickly and easily relocate. The often very professional layout of web pages and so on used in the scams suggests that they do not lack technical sophistication.
Sometimes, victims are invited to a country to meet real or fake government officials. Some victims that travel are instead held for ransom. In some rumoured cases they are smuggled into the country without a visa and then threatened into giving up more money, as the penalties for being in a foreign country without a visa are severe. In the most extreme cases the victim is even murdered.[2]
In another variation of the scam, the scammer places calls through IP Relay (www.ip-relay.com), a federally-funded internet telerelay service for deaf/hard of hearing/speech disabled individuals. The scammer calls various businesses, attempting to purchase items with stolen or fraudulent credit cards. Oftentimes, individuals are targeted as well, most of whom being those who advertise a product or service online.
Typically, in an IP-Relay scam call, the scammer will place several calls using a Relay Operator. Calling to businesses or private parties, the scammer will inquire about merchandise/services offered, and then immediately and with few questions asked, attempt to purchase the merchandise. The Scammer then proceeds to ask for an e-mail address, by which he can contact the victim to proceed with the closing of the fraudulent transaction.
The scammer proceeds to send the victim a counterfeit money order, with instructions requiring that it be cashed, and that excess funds sent back to the scammer (advanced fee fraud). When it is determined that the money order is counterfeit, the victim is usually arrested by the authorities for playing a role in the scam.
It is worth noting that credit card fraud is not the only kind of fraud reported through IP Relay. A relay scammer typically will use IP Relay for all fraudulent-related transactions/telephone calls within the United States. This includes the "love bug " scam, as detailed below.
A recent variant is a money-for-romance angle. The male or female "victim" is approached on an Online dating service and becomes interested in a "lady" or "man" who has attractive pictures posted, generally stolen from online portfolios of modeling agencies. The offending party claims to be interested in coming to visit the victim, but needs some cash up front in order to book the plane, hotel room, and other expenses. In other cases he or she may have just travelled to Nigeria (for tourism or business) and has been arrested by corrupt officials, or become ill from eating the local food, and needs an emergency Western Union transfer to bail or bribe his/her way out. As with other variants, money always seems to travel to Africa mainly via Western Union, and the "lady" or "man" always seems to come up with additional reasons for requesting more funds.
In another updated scam, scammer offers to buy some expensive item (eg., jewellery or a car, that the prospective victim advertised on eBay, for example, or legitimate classifieds website) by official, certified, bank or cashier's check. The check will have an "accidentally" or mutually agreed higher value than the price of the item, so the scammer asks the victim to wire the extra money to some third party as soon as the check clears. The check typically clears after one or two days, but the fact that it is counterfeit is not detected until several days or weeks later, by which time the victim has sent the item and the "additional money" to the scammer and his representative. Most banks will hold the victim accountable for the value of the counterfeit check.
A variation on the eBay scam involves sending a request for payment for an item that the alleged seller does not own but claims to have sent. Since actual eBay item numbers are used this has been a nuisance for legitimate sellers.
Another method is after winning a bid on items on the online auction site eBay (especially laptops or other consumer electronics), to suggest to use an escrow service. However, the escrow service is fake and part of the scam. The victim will send the laptop or camera to the escrow service, never to hear from the scammer or escrow service again. The website of the escrow service will typically go offline after the victim has sent his goods.
In one case the victim knew that the supposed buyer was a scammer and scammed the scammer. The whole exchange and pictures was extensively documented on the Something Awful forums.
Lottery scam involves fake notices of lottery wins. The winner will usually be asked to send sensitive information to a free email account. This is a form of advance fee fraud as money in advance is often required and is also similar to phishing. A variant of the scam will appear to be sent by a lawyer representing the estate of some long-lost relative the victim never knows he or she had (the victim's surname will be inserted into the e-mail message) who perished along with his or her family in a car or airplane accident last April. The scammer will claim to have gone to a lot of trouble to find the victim in order to give him or her a share of the millions of dollars available if the victim will forward his or her bank account information to the scammer.
A more direct variant is found in the fake charity and fake church scams. In this type of scam the victim is asked to donate or invest in a local (often West African) charity or church. While no direct monetary benefit is presented to the victim, these scams are perpetrated by the same scammers that also employ more traditional advance fee fraud and the scams follow roughly the same modus operandi as the previously mentioned scams.
Estimates of the total losses due to the scam vary widely. The Snopes website lists the following estimate:
Although the "success rate" of the scam is hard to gauge, some experienced 419 scammers get one or two interested replies for every thousand messages. An experienced scammer can expect to make several thousand dollars per month [4].
Ultrascan Advanced Global Investigations, a Netherlands - based firm which has been studying 419 matters since the mid -1990's, has prepared a table quantifying 419 operations by country for 2005. These stats are based on Ultrascan's in-house investigations and include, by nation: number of 419 rings; number of 419ers; income of the 419ers (the amount of losses by victims to the 419ers); and additional data. 419 Coalition view is that these stats present a reasonably conservative and realistic look at the extent and magnitude of 419 criminal operations worldwide. [5]
Since 1995, the United States Secret Service has been (somewhat) involved in combating these schemes, but they will not investigate unless the monetary loss is in excess of fifty thousand US Dollars. Very few arrests and prosecutions have been made due to the international aspect of this crime.
Some victims have hired private investigators in Nigeria or have personally travelled to Nigeria, without ever retrieving their money. One American was murdered in Nigeria while pursuing his lost money. In February 2003, a scam victim from the Czech Republic shot and killed an official at the Nigerian embassy. [6] A Greek man was murdered in South Africa after responding to a 419 scam. [7] On occasion Americans living in the Los Angeles area who stopped sending payments were physically stopped and threatened by people who had contacts with the scammers.
In 2004, fifty-two suspects were arrested in Amsterdam after an extensive raid. An Internet service provider had noticed the increased email traffic. Out of these fifty-two none has been jailed or fined to date, due to lack of evidence. They were released in the week of July 12, 2004. An entirely phony "Nigerian embassy" was also discovered in Amsterdam; another allegedly exists in Bangkok.
Another effect of the scam's proliferation is that ordinary Nigerians are having their access to the internet hindered. One reporter in Nigeria sent this in an email to his producers in late 2005:
Legitimate Nigerian businesses are also finding their e-mails increasingly fail to reach their targets, due to people and companies setting their e-mail clients to automatically mark all mail containing the words 'Nigeria' and 'Nigerian' or coming from Nigerian IP addresses as spam, or even delete it out of hand.
Here is an example of a typical email message which attempts to attract victims:
From: "BIBI LUCKY" <bibialora1@example.net.ng> Subject: Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2002 15:03:44 +0100 To: John.Doe@example.com Reply-To: bibialora1@example.com Dear Sir, ASSISTANCE REQUIRED FOR ACQUISITION OF ESTATE I write to inform you of my desire to acquire estates or landed properties in your country on behalf of the Director of Contracts and Finance Allocations of the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing in Nigeria. Considering his very strategic and influential position, he would want the transaction to be as strictly confidential as possible. He further wants his identity to remain undisclosed at least for now, until the completion of the transaction. Hence our desire to have an overseas agent. I have therefore been directed to inquire if you would agree to act as our overseas agent in order to actualize this transaction. The deal, in brief, is that the funds with which we intend to carry out our proposed investments in your country is presently in a coded account at the Nigerian Apex Bank (i.e. the Central Bank of Nigeria) and we need your assistance to transfer the funds to your country in a convenient bank account that will be provided by you before we can put the funds into use in your country. For this, you shall be considered to have executed a contract for the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing in Nigeria for which payment should be effected to you by the Ministry, The contract sum of which shall run into US$26.4 Million, of which your share shall be 30% if you agree to be our overseas agent. As soon as payment is effected, and the amount mentioned above is successfully transferred into your account, we intend to use our own share in acquiring some estates abroad. For this too you shall also serve as our agent. In the light of this, I would like you to forward to me the following information: 1. Your company name and address if any 2. Your personal fax number 3. Your personal telephone number for easy communication. You are requested to communicate your acceptance of this proposal through my above stated email address after which we shall discuss in details the modalities for seeing this transaction through. Your quick response will be highly appreciated. Thank you in anticipation of your cooperation. Yours faithfully, BIBI LUCKY.
Other examples of Nigerian scam emails can be seen on the CIAC Hoaxbusters web site.
As a result of the fraud, Nigeria is drafting legislation to make spamming a criminal offence punishable with a fine up to £2,000GBP and three years in jail [8].
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