allAfrica.com: Advance Fee or 4-1-9 Fraud

The information below is offered as a service to users of allAfrica.com. In providing it, AllAfrica Global Media accepts no obligation or responsibility to supply information on this topic to any individual or organizations.

What is advance fee fraud?

Users of allAfrica.com may from time to time receive emails which exhort them to help the writer of the email to export large sums of money from an African country in return for a share of the transferred funds. These schemes are now notorious and variously known as advance fee frauds, scam letters, or '419' letters, after the numbered clause in Nigeria's penal code outlawing this practice.

Although it is widely believed that all such emails emanate from Nigeria there are examples purporting to be sent from all over the continent and indeed, other parts of the world including Brazil, Malaysia and other examples recently received in our offices.

How the scam works

The writer of a '419' letter - sometimes an individual with an elevated position in a government or central bank - will usually first explain how he/she came to have access to a sum of money usually in the millions of dollars. They will often readily acknowledge that the funds are the ill-gotten gains of corruption, theft or other illegal means, although some will suggest that they have come by the money by happy accident.

The writer will ask the recipient to help move the cash out of the African country by opening a new bank account in their country or making an existing account available. Alternatively he/she may provide bank account details. The writer may suggest that the recipient 'primes' the account by depositing some thousands of dollars in that account and will ask for the account details. In return for setting up the account and aiding transfer of the funds, the recipient is promised a significant share - perhaps a few million dollars - of the total once the transaction is complete.

In the simplest version of the fraud, the recipient's money used to prime the account may simply be taken out by the scam perpetrators but this is not usual. The objective of the letter writer is to persuade the recipient voluntarily to pay out more and more money to facilitate the transaction.

Most commonly, those who answer such letters and agree to participate are led on to attend meetings with the supposed writer of the letter, perhaps even travelling to Africa or elsewhere to meet and discuss the terms of the deal, committing more and more money to the project, especially as 'unexpected problems' arise. Having already committed large amounts of money, they may be reluctant to pull out and instead pay more in the hope of retrieving the 'investment'. Ultimately they lose it all. Although there have been a few cases in which the perpetrators have been caught and made to pay money back, it has rarely been more than a small proportion of the original outlay.

Use of allAfrica.com articles to buttress the fraudsters' claims

In some scam letters, reference has been made to articles on allAfrica.com, and a link provided, in an attempt to buttress the plausibility of the scam.

You are advised that there is no connection whatsoever between any allAfrica articles cited and the fraud being perpetrated. Any claimed relationship between information contained in the articles and in the scam letters is artificial and manufactured by the letter writers. Further, AllAfrica Global Media and its website allAfrica.com have no knowledge of or connection with those perpetrating this fraud.

Regrettably, we are powerless to prevent the fraudsters from citing links to articles we have posted; We have more than 600,000 stories in our archive, and scam letter writers select different ones for different scams. The writers of such letters are free to find and select articles and cite links from anywhere on the Internet. AllAfrica Global Media cannot prevent them doing this however much we would like to do so.

What to do if you receive such a letter

Do not be tempted to respond favourably in the hope of getting more information. You will merely be confirming your email address and making it easier for the perpetrators of the fraud to pursue you. But whether you have responded to the email or not, you should take action.

You can supply a copy of the letter you have received to the appropriate law-enforcement bureau in your country and if you have suffered financial loss you will want to contact them for advice - use the sites and links below; you may also want to forward the letter to the email service being used by the fraudsters to send out such letters.

Different countries have different procedures for dealing with this problem. A useful list of actions, addresses and phone numbers appears on the website of the 419 coalition http://home.rica.net/alphae/419coal/ for Australia, Canada, South Africa, the UK and the USA.

Resources about '419' or Advance Fraud schemes

Nigeria - The 419 Coalition Website

http://home.rica.net/alphae/419coal/

US Secret Service: Public Awareness Advisory Regarding "4-1-9" or "Advance Fee Fraud" Schemes

http://www.secretservice.gov/alert419.shtml

UK Metropolitan Police Advisory on West African Advance Fee Fraud

http://www.met.police.uk/fraudalert/419.htm

US Department of State - Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs - Publication 10465 "Nigerian Advance Fee Fraud" (PDF document)

http://www.state.gov/www/regions/africa/naffpub.pdf

NigeriaBusiness Info.com

http://www.nigeriabusinessinfo.com/archive/419.htm

Useful contacts from 419fraud.com

http://www.419fraud.com/419_contacts.htm

Council of Better Business Bureaus: Nigerian letter scams go high tech

http://www.bbb.org/alerts/nigerian061099.asp

Selected Articles about '419' Fraud

Major Global Effort Under Way to Counter Fraud Scam

http://allafrica.com/stories/200210010408.html

Nigerian Scam Uses Fake SA Banking Websites

http://allafrica.com/stories/200210010402.html