419 Fraud

Nigerian 419 Fraud Emails

419 is the designation for fraud in the criminal code for Nigeria. It is also referred to as advance fee fraud where the scam victim is told that a fee, bribe or other expense has to be paid so they can receive their fortune. African scams typically fall under this type of fraud even though they might originate outside of Nigeria. This type of fraud, however, is active in other countries outside of Africa as well such as the UK and other countries in Europe and around the world. The fraud takes place when the victim receives an email stating that they can receive a large part of a fortune if they reply and provide certain information or cash a check for them at a bank and send the proceeds to the sender of the email.

The scammer will usually pose as a governing official, employee of a bank or business or relative of such. They will plea with the person reading the email that they need your help in transfering assets, either their's or someone else's, and they are willing to give up part of the loot in exchange for this help. They will say that in order to transfer this money, the victim needs to cash a check for them and send the proceeds back. The check, however, is phony and when the bank discovers it, the victim loses the money since the bank reclaims the amount. When the check is cashed, the money may be wired to Nigeria since it is harder to trace or it can be sent by other means designed to hide the scammer's identity. The types of emails received are usually lottery scams, inheritance scams and also emails claiming to help the victims of 419 fraud.