Laundering Crooked Money – The Original 419 Fraudulent Scam The Setup: A corrupt government worker has embezzled millions of dollars from a company or government entity and needs help laundering the money. In order to avoid the local authorities, he needs to send it to an overseas bank account. The Payoff: In return for your help, the scammer claims you will receive a cut of the money. The amount varies from scam to scam, but is usually anywhere from 10% to 50% of the ten to twenty-five million U.S. dollars being laundered. The Financial Catch: To avoid creating a paper trail, the Nigerian official cannot take care of the transactional aspects of the deal. He needs you to make all the necessary arrangements. The practicalities involve a lawyer and some specialized bankers referred to by the Nigerian official, all of whom require payment. You must pay fees totaling several thousand U.S. dollars before the transfer of funds can be completed. The Bottom Line: This is the oldest and simplest form of the 419 scam. Most of the solicitations for assistance are initiated in a long, descriptive letter, often with numerous grammatical errors. The victim is targeted at random and there is little personalization in the solicitation message. In fact, there is no multi-million dollar account; the scammers keep requesting fees from you until you realize that you have been scammed. Some victims have lost tens of thousands of U.S. dollars of their own or borrowed funds. A new variation on the scheme does away with the lawyer fees, favoring a uniquely post-September 11th approach. In this scenario, the money transfer is allegedly being held up by the Nigerian “Anti-Terrorist Enforcement Agency” pending certification that funds will not be used for terrorist purposes. The fee for the supposed Anti-Terrorist Certificate is $4,000. If you feel you have been a victim of an Internet scam, please send all reports of Internet fraud directly to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) ic3.gov/ - a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C). IC3 was established to receive internet related criminal complaints and to research, develop, and refer complaints to federal, state, local, or international law enforcement if appropriate.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Jun 2013 03:51:32 +0000
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