Conversations with Real Life Victims

Unless you are extremely fortunate, if you have a public email address, chances are that you may have stumbled on a 419 email scam at one point or another. Ironically, 419 is the real number of a section of the Nigerian penal code designed to prevent fraud against foreigners. In the seventies and eighties, the 419 scam, which has been featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show, came via snail mail campaigns to unsuspecting American, European and Canadian victims. Nowadays, many internet cafes overseas are packed everyday with people of all ages, trying their luck, as they churn out millions of 419 email blasts to westerners. These criminals are very patient, and can spend weeks or months scouring the internet like maggots, looking to wiggle away thousands or even millions of dollars from the accounts of gullible European and North American victims.

The emails often begin with an emotional hook designed to quickly win the reader’s trust and sympathy. The writer may pretend to be the only surviving relative of a deposed head of state, whose entire family has been massacred, and is looking for a safe passage to protect her family’s estate, and to salvage what is left of her decimated family. She may even pretend to be a terminally ill patient with inoperable cancer, looking for a way to create an overseas trust so that after her death, a westerner could distribute the proceeds of her estate to charity. In all cases, the crooks are trying to lure someone—preferably a westerner, into thinking that he will really receive a 20% commission if he helps the criminal transfer millions of dollars into his European or North American account. Once these scammers get a potential victim drooling with saliva, they then start to demand a couple of thousand dollars or even smaller amounts such as $300.00 at a time from the victim, ostensibly to cover the administrative costs of processing the transfer of the $30, $50 or $100 million to the victims’ offshore bank account. When they have squeezed enough money from their victims, they simply disappear.

This problem is so pervasive that it has even been depicted in movies abroad. In one such movie, an American businessman with a suit case full of money arrives at a foreign airport. He is given an enthusiastic welcome by his hosts who transport him in a convoy of borrowed or stolen Mercedes Benzes to a mansion. Minutes after they are all seated, an armed robber bursts in, ties everyone up, and disappears with the westerner’s suit case. Later on, the robbers who are part of the same criminal gang then reconvene to distribute the loot with the westerner’s hosts. The victim ends up at the American Embassy, but by then it is too late. He is stranded overseas, with no passport and no money for a return ticket—in the midst of even more thugs who speak languages that he does not understand.

Despite the numerous articles and TV shows over the years, cautioning people to beware of these gangs, 419 criminals have become even more daring in recent years. They are cyber roaches who are so resilient that they keep coming up with new ways to trick their victims. It is best not to open their emails, because you could get hooked. Many years ago, when I worked as a foreign trade specialist, I often ran into people from all walks of life, who had lost large sums of money in 419 schemes. I remember vividly how I tried to talk a wealthy businessman from flying abroad on a 419 business trip. “It’s a 419 scam,” I told him. “Don’t take their calls any more.” He appeared to agree, but he called my office a couple of weeks later, and said, “I should have listened to you. I made the trip, and we even held several meetings at their central bank. But after I paid the deposit, I watched them disappear with my money, and there was nothing I could do.”

The Internet has made it much easier for these thieves to reach millions of people worldwide with these schemes. They often vanish after each deal, only to begin another email campaign in search of their next victims. The best way to avoid falling into their traps is to delete their emails without reading them. An Ohio resident, who prefers to remain anonymous, received an enticing 419 letter—her first from overseas. She quietly sold four of her investment properties in order to raise the thousands of dollars which the crooks had asked her to bring along to cover transfer fees for the millions of dollars she had been promised. She flew to Amsterdam with two of her sons, and met with the 419 perpetrators. After several days of intense “business” meetings, the thieves arrived one evening smiling with tears of joy, congratulating each other, and hugging her. “Everything is done madam. Everything is ready. We will be rich!,” they told her, over champagne—which she paid for. “All we need to do now is to pay the deposit and the fees, and the rest will be taken care of, first thing tomorrow.” She handed them bundles of money worth thousands of dollars, and the thieves left with a promise of returning the next day with details about the impending wire transfer. “I waited for two weeks,” she said, sobbing. “but they never came back.”