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I guess that you have heard about these phenomena, and maybe you have received such letters too. In short this is about you receiving a letter where you are being asked to help some Nigerian functionaries who represent a panel of official serviceperson's that unfortunately have found raised funds on an account in the Nigerian Central bank. This money comes from former regimes overpricing of goods etc. and nobody miss these money. Those functionaries need you among many other companies they have checked for their transaction of this money from one account in the Nigerian Central Bank to your account in Norway. The reason why they have chosen you is because they have heard about your fantastic skills on being discrete and be able to do such transactions. As a gesture for your help, you will be honored with 30% of the total amount, which can be a lot, as the transaction can be as high as $30-35 mill US Dollars. Your earnings could then be a quick 60-70 mill NOK. 10% of the total amount goes to cover different expenses during transaction and 60% of the amount those functionaries keep by them selves. But…. Unfortunately, there will be some expenses while the money is kept in Nigeria. In the meantime you have to be kind and pay those different expenses that occur, expenses that will be shared among all parts involved. Your share can be as high as $2-5000 US Dollars which goes to cover lawyers in Nigeria and fees to the bank, helpers etc. They will off course ask you to keep a record of all your expenses, because they will give you a 10% refund of the total amount that shall cover these expenses. This will be done as soon as the amount is in your account. But in the meantime it would have been very kind of you if you could help with those expenses. And by time - those will be many! If you receive a letter, where the content is marked "Urgent", and something about that the time is a very important element, be sure to check the envelope to see when it was posted. It has often taken weeks by boat. So what is it that could be so important? Do also check if the phone- and fax number has been overwritten. If you have received a genuine letter from either the Central Bank of Nigeria or from the minister of finances himself, don't be fooled. The minister of finances Office, Central Bank of Nigeria, and a lot of other persons of high rank do this kind of frauds. Others buy papers and stamp from the same institutions. Don't be tricked/don't let them fool you. There are 99% chances for this to be trickery. Letters can be genuine the same time as you, step by step, gets deeper end deeper into this mud. If you have been a victim of this, then you know how clever these people can be. It starts so smooth but at one point you don't know how you got trapped into this. And when you first see this, you are probably in one ore another country in the Nigerian neighborhood, maybe without money or a passport. Very often people have both a return ticket and a passport, but very little money. We know that! Several times we have been down there and helped people who were stacked to get out, especially in Lome, Togo. Those that have been tricked into this business are often leaders in the business world. In cooperation with their company or the company's lawyers we have several times got the mission of bringing those persons that were trapped there back to Norway. Then there are those that have heard about these stories and say "I would never gave been tricked by such foolish letters as these". We have helped these persons out too. It's a simple reason. In Nigeria there are several groups that earn money this way. Did you for example know that the third greatest income in Nigeria is so called International Fraud? Some of the groups are hopeless amateurs, who buy third hand address lists which have been used 2 and 3 times before. Phone- and fax numbers are erased with correction ink - and new numbers are added. That's a total other story. Then you have the really professionals, people that are employed in the Central Bank, the Department of Finances or somewhere else in the government. This are persons that not only claim them self to be someone else, but who also are employed in the system, takes you to their office in the Central bank or in the Department. We also know that some functionaries do rent out their offices private to groups that do this business. Remember that Nigeria is a very corrupt country, a country where you can buy what ever you want if you have money enough. We know that too, because in many of our transports down there it has been necessary to buy different things. To buy is the minor problem there if you have cash. It is not only business leaders that have been fooled into this kind of business; even this is the most touched group. Retired persons have also been tricked into this business. This is the group that Nigeria started to do this tricky business with in Norway in 1995. ØKOKRIM did in one
occasion convince one man that he was being a victim for trickery
from Nigeria. He was then at the airport ready to travel down there,
luckily for him. But not for all those others that have been tricked.
It is weird that there still are so many people that are being tricked
since this kind of business letters from Nigeria have been around
for quite a while. After the summer vacation and in the fall we notice
a raise in those cases where we have to go down hand help people out.
Oslo Police office received in 1995 around 30.000 reports for these
and similar businesses- an amount have to be a small top of the iceberg.
We know that, because a large number of those that are victims of
this fraud do not go to the police. This is understandable. How many
wants to admit that they have been tricked for 10.000 NOK? You also
have to remember that those we have contact with are business leaders
or department leaders etc. They do not want their co-workers to know
that they have been involved in this. Neither is this good for their
future in the business world. Maybe it will be in the newspapers too,
and then everything is lost. So- to tell someone that you will not be tricked into this business anyway would be foolish. We have given you a brief description about the way this things works - to help you recognize these letters when they arrive in your mailbox.
Fake e-mail
De Lotto warns against a large Lottery scam. In an e-mail (or letter), which
is written in bad English, the addressee is told that he/she has won a large
amount of money in a lottery. When the ‘lottery’ is contacted, it turns out
that the prize can only be collected if a payment is made of thousands of
dollars/euros for ‘handling fees’. Obviously the prize is never paid out. The
organization behind the fraud operates under different names, often derived
from well known lotteries. For example: Lucky Day Lottery, De Lotto
Netherlands, Interlotto, Oy Keikkaus Switzerland, El Gordo de la Primitiva and
Global Trust Lottery.
The police and the Ministry of Justice have been informed about the fraud. Nevertheless, it is hard to stop the malpractices. The criminals give false addresses, and cannot be traced via the stated telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and P.O. Boxes. Neither do they have permanent addresses and moreover, they change their identity regularly. If you should receive such an e-mail, do not respond in any way, don not provide these people with any personal identity information and do not pay any money! And how do they get your email adress?
Our new crook search site (remember to only search for name/s. Not company/s. ( Later you will have the possibility to search everything, but not yet) Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) web site |
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