Nigerian 419 Scams / Advance Fee Frauds

Sir,

After due deliberations with my colleagues, I decided to forward to you this proposal. We want a reliable person who could assist us to transfer the sum of(US$39.5M) Thirty Nine Million, Five Hundred Thousand US Dollars only into his account.

This fund resulted from an over-invoiced bill from a contract awarded by us under the budget, allocated to my ministry and the bill was approved for payment by the concerned ministries. The contract has been executed,commissioned and the contractor has been paid his actual cost for the contract. We are now left with the balance of US$39.5M as the over-invoiced amount, which we have deliberately over estimated for our own use.

But under our protocol division, civil servants are forbidden to operate or own a foreign account. This is why l contacted you for assistance. We have agreed that you will be entitled to 30% of the total sum, 60% will be for us while 10% for any expenses incurred while transacting the business and whatever left from the 10% will be shared equally.

I got your business outfit from our Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

I am GEORGE NAMSEL , a top official with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). We, the officials involved in the deal have put in many years in services to our ministries. We have been exercising patience for this opportunity for so long and to most of us, this is a lifetime opportunity we cannot afford to miss. My number is FAX: 234-1-7593105 , TEL:234-803-307-5846.

To enable us get this fund paid into your account, we have to present an international business outfit and consequent upon your agreement, we shall proceed in doing business together. You may be required to sign the fund release authority in our Apex Bank. All these will only take us 10 working days to transfer this fund into your account right from the day we receive the REQUIREMENTS.

NOTE: Your discussion regarding to this transaction should be limited, because we are still in government service and your type of BUSINESS those not matter.

Let honesty and trust be our watchwords throughout this transaction. And your prompt reply will be highly appreciated. Please reply for more details.

Best regards

GEORGE NAMSEL

If you receive a message that reads something like the above, MIT Stopit will not be able to help you very much. DO NOT RESPOND to the message sender under any circumstances.

What are these messages?

These messages are very common, and although the amount of money they promise may vary, and the "story" may vary from time to time, they are all frauds being run out of the nation of Nigeria. Sometimes you will get messages that purport to be from the Ivory Coast, or Guinea Bissau, or other countries, but all of these scams are working out of Nigeria, and are therefore called Nigerian 419 Scams.

We advise people receiving such messages to ignore them.

Where can I get more information?

There are many place to get background on the Nigerian 419 scams, but here are a few of the better one:

• http://www.scambusters.org/NigerianFee.html
• http://home.rica.net/alphae/419coal/
• http://home.pacbell.net/jpaladin
• http://travel.state.gov/tips_nigeria.html
• http://www.sierra-leone.org/scams.html

Who can you file a complaint with?

Some of the pages above contain instructions if you would like to file a complaint with the Secret Service or the FBI. Given the current state of events, we are not sure that either of these agencies is very actively pursuing these case, but if you have fallen prey to the scheme, by all means, contact the Secret Service

If you would like to report your situation to the FBI, refer to http://boston.fbi.gov/ for the local FBI office location and phone number.