77 Arrests in International E - Mail Scams

[Mucho]

77 Arrests in International E - Mail Scams
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: October 3, 2007
Filed at 2:21 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The e-mails arrive out of the blue, from Nigeria or other exotic countries. They tell of inheritances, political problems, other reasons someone needs to get money out of the country. If you help, they promise to let you share the money.

Unfortunately, thousands of people fall for the scam, losing an average of $3,000 to $4,000 each. So far this year, an average of more than 800 people a month have filed complaints about such scams. Hoping to stem the losses, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service announced an international crackdown Wednesday in which more than 540,000 fake checks with a face value of $2.1 billion have been seized.

There have been 60 arrests in the Netherlands, 16 in Nigeria and one in Canada, the Postal Inspection Service said, and the effort is continuing. ''There is no room in the mail for any of these phony come-ons,'' Postmaster General John Potter said.

Most of the cons start with e-mails telling of an inheritance or lottery win and ask the victim to help bring the money to the United States. The victim is asked to cash a check that comes in the mail and to send part of the money back to the person sending it, said Greg Campbell, inspector in charge of global security and investigations for the Postal Inspection Service.

Then that person disappears with the money and the original check bounces, leaving the victim with a loss. Retired people have lost their nest eggs and young families have been defrauded of their savings for a home, Potter said. Many of the cases originate in the Netherlands, where West African con artists operate from Internet cafes, said Johan Van Hartskamp, commissioner of the Amsterdam police.

In what he called ''Operation Dutch Treat,'' police have arrested 60 people there, with three extradited to the United States and four more facing extradition. The rest are being prosecuted in the Netherlands, he said. Ibrahim Lamorde, director of the Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, said the problem is monumental and ''will only be surmounted through global efforts.''

U.S. Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher said: ''There is no lottery. There is no inheritance. The checks are not real. But there are real victims. The crime knows no borders, and our coordinated law enforcement knows no borders.''

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[Casawi]

I can't believe people fall for that. But how could someone cash a Nigerian check in the US ???

 

[Modular]

Well, at least they are doing something about it. Now, we just have to teach these 800 idiots a month that there is NO such thing as a "get rich quick" scheme. I bet they all play the lotto religiously as well.

 

[spaceman]

Dear Sir or Madam , I am incarcerated.
Help!



sincerely, Nigeria.

 

[ItsOnlyMe]

//I can't believe people fall for that. But how could someone cash a Nigerian check in the US ???//

Just be aware that all of these scams aren?t all about get rich schemes, some appear to be ordinary business propositions.

I?m from the UK and my daughter was very nearly caught by one of these.
She is a dancer who works all over the world but she also advertises dance classes in the UK on a dance web site (she contracts the work to other teachers when she is away)
She was contacted by email from somebody saying that he was from the USA and would be staying in the UK for a few months with his family whilst on a temporary work contract.
He had 2 daughters and wanted them to have private dance lessons while he was over here and he had got her contact details from the internet and wanted to know how much she charged and where the dance school was located etc.
My daughter emailed him back with her rates for the lessons and the cost for the hire of the venue where the lessons would take place etc.
He replied, agreeing to the rates, and asked her to book lessons and the venue for the next 3 months, arranging dates and times etc. with her and said a cheque (check) would be sent to her straight away.
A few days later the cheque arrived (it was a bankers draft) in the sum of 2000 UK pounds but her fees that she had quoted him had only been about 800 pounds. She contacted the bank to ask about a bankers draft and they advised her that it was as good as cash so she went ahead and booked the venue and arranged for a dance teacher for the lessons.
As she was going to work in Sri Lanka for a few weeks she asked me if I could complete the arrangements for her and make the payments to the teacher and the venue whilst she was away.
I then emailed the client to ask why he had sent 2000 pounds not 800 as had been agreed and he said that the other 1200 pounds was for a taxi that he had arranged to transport his daughters to and from the venue, as he would be unable to do it himself as his work was too time consuming. He asked if we could forward this money on by Western Union to his ?Travel Agent? in the UK as soon as possible so that his kids would not miss their first lesson when they arrived in the country.
This is when I smelt a rat, my daughter I think though would have been taken in by it. I told him that we could not send him this money until his cheque had been cleared by the bank and he then started sending emails threatening legal action.
To cut a long story short, the bank eventually returned the cheque (it was a forgery) and I had to contact the venue and the dance teacher and tell them the situation. We lost about 50 pounds in advance booking deposit but at least we hadn?t lost the 1200 pounds.
It turns out the ?client? was a Nigerian spammer using fake credentials.

 

[IceBergSLiM]

Originally posted by: Casawi
I can't believe people fall for that. But how could someone cash a Nigerian check in the US ???

i remember a story where a clergymen in Connecticut fell for the scam then started doing it himself and got caught. I wonder how jesus feels about that.

 

[purbeast0]

Originally posted by: ItsOnlyMe
//I can't believe people fall for that. But how could someone cash a Nigerian check in the US ???//

Just be aware that all of these scams aren?t all about get rich schemes, some appear to be ordinary business propositions.

I?m from the UK and my daughter was very nearly caught by one of these.

She is a dancer who works all over the world but she also advertises dance classes in the UK on a dance web site (she contracts the work to other teachers when she is away)

She was contacted by email from somebody saying that he was from the USA and would be staying in the UK for a few months with his family whilst on a temporary work contract.

He had 2 daughters and wanted them to have private dance lessons while he was over here and he had got her contact details from the internet and wanted to know how much she charged and where the dance school was located etc.

My daughter emailed him back with her rates for the lessons and the cost for the hire of the venue where the lessons would take place etc.

He replied, agreeing to the rates, and asked her to book lessons and the venue for the next 3 months, arranging dates and times etc. with her and said a cheque (check) would be sent to her straight away.

A few days later the cheque arrived (it was a bankers draft) in the sum of 2000 UK pounds but her fees that she had quoted him had only been about 800 pounds. She contacted the bank to ask about a bankers draft and they advised her that it was as good as cash so she went ahead and booked the venue and arranged for a dance teacher for the lessons.

As she was going to work in Sri Lanka for a few weeks she asked me if I could complete the arrangements for her and make the payments to the teacher and the venue whilst she was away.

I then emailed the client to ask why he had sent 2000 pounds not 800 as had been agreed and he said that the other 1200 pounds was for a taxi that he had arranged to transport his daughters to and from the venue, as he would be unable to do it himself as his work was too time consuming. He asked if we could forward this money on by Western Union to his ?Travel Agent? in the UK as soon as possible so that his kids would not miss their first lesson when they arrived in the country.

This is when I smelt a rat, my daughter I think though would have been taken in by it. I told him that we could not send him this money until his cheque had been cleared by the bank and he then started sending emails threatening legal action.

To cut a long story short, the bank eventually returned the cheque (it was a forgery) and I had to contact the venue and the dance teacher and tell them the situation. We lost about 50 pounds in advance booking deposit but at least we hadn?t lost the 1200 pounds.

It turns out the ?client? was a Nigerian spammer using fake credentials.

Fixed so I could actually read it.

 

[luv2liv]

we have photos of serial killers but none of scammers and spammers.

i remember a top rate spammer was arrested in usa but no photos of him ever surfaced. :|

 

[jtvang125]

A+ for the effort but sadly 77 new scammers are already in line waiting to take their place.

 

[Mucho]

£8m of papers seized in Nigerian fraud haul

By Sally Peck and agencies
Last Updated: 2:55pm BST 04/10/2007

Thousands of fake documents worth an estimated £8 million have been seized in an international crackdown on email fraud schemes.

Over 4,500 documents, including fake cheques and fraudulent passports, were discovered during a month-long operation in Nigeria by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), working with local police. The documents are believed to have been destined for the UK, where they would play a role in so-called "Nigerian letter fraud".

Mass marketing fraud, which cost the UK over £3.5 billion a year according to the Government, uses mass communication tools to reach large numbers of people cheaply and easily. In the letter fraud scheme, people claiming to be Nigerian royals or deposed politicians email offering to share a large sum of money in exchange for the victim's help in getting the cash out of the country.

Victims send their bank account details, "administration" fees are levied and a raft of fake bank documents are sent. Victims receive the promised money in the form of a cheque only to discover that the cheque is fake after paying the fee. More than 3.2 million Britons have handed over cash after being approached by scammers via email, letter or telephone, according to figures released by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT)

Paul Evans, the executive director of Soca, said: "Organised criminals respect no borders and international cooperation is vital when tackling this type of fraud. We are working with partners across the globe to tackle the fraudsters wherever they may be - from Lagos to London and Amsterdam to Alabama."

Many scams, like the Nigerian letters, centre on an advanced fee, where prizes or large sums of money are offered but in order to access them the victim must pay money up front. Mike Haley, head of consumer protection at the OFT, said scammers will send out thousands of letters or emails and then zero in on the most vulnerable recipients.

In other schemes, victims were conned out of thousands of pounds on fraudulent dating websites. Fraudsters pose as fellow-users in order to build up a relationship of trust and then demand money, claiming to be sick or to have had an accident. Mr Haley told BBC One's Breakfast programme that people using dating websites were easy prey because of their reluctance to report the crime. "Most people are embarrassed to admit they have got involved in such a scam," he said.

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[conehead433]

My email address won the lottery. Woohoo!