Nigerian Black Money Scam

I received dozen of black money scam email a day. This scam usually begins with a letter or e-mail purportedly sent to a selected recipient but actually sent to many, making an offer that would result in a large payoff for the victim. The e-mail's subject line often says something like "From the desk of Mr. [Name]", "Your assistance is needed", and so on. The details vary, but the usual story is that a person, often a government or bank employee, knows of a large amount of unclaimed money or gold which he cannot access directly, usually because he has no right to it. The money could be in the form of gold bullion, gold dust, money in a bank account, blood diamonds, a series of cheques or bank drafts, banknote and so forth. Many operations are professionally organized in Nigeria, with offices, working fax numbers, and often contacts at government offices.

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This kind of scam also called among other, as the Nigerian Letter (also called the 419 fraud, Nigerian scam, Nigerian bank scam, or Nigerian money offer, the Spanish Prisoner, the black money scam as well as Russian/Ukrainian scam (also extremely widespread, though far less popular than the former). The so-called Russian and Nigerian scams stand for wholly dissimilar organised-crime traditions; they therefore tend to use altogether different breeds of approaches.

Photo by: The star.com.my

In Malaysia, the scam has been started since 1998. Most of these con artists enter the country on a social visit pass which allows them to stay up to 30 days. They tend to enrol in local colleges, some even reputable ones, just to obtain student visas so that they could extend their stay here. These so-called students are believed to pay off college staff to mark their attendance.

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In the Black Money scam, victims are told about a stash of bank notes which had been dyed black to avoid Customs detection. The money was supposedly kept in a safe somewhere and the victim should purchase a type of chemical to wash off the dye which would then unveil “genuine” US dollars. con men, upon meeting their target, would produce a small vial of washing liquid called “Universal Automatic Washer” and ask the victim to select any black bank note at random. The black banknote would be washed but with a sleight of hand,the con man would substitute it with a real note. Victims are given the “washed” bank notes and are encouraged to verify their authenticity at a money changer.

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This is just an alert for everyone for such a scam. Don't be fuelled by your greed, someone might taking advantages of them. This Nigerian conman also use local women to carry out their deception, targeting single mothers or college students and using their bank accounts to conduct their shady business. Just make sure your friend and family doesn't fall into their trap. If an offer is so good to be true and most probably its a scam. Any of you receive the similar e-mail lately?

Source:Wikipedia, the star.com.my, hindu.com