Thursday, September 25, 2008

419 ADVANCED FEE FRAUD ALERT

That there are fraudsters all over the world is no longer news, with recent landmark prosecution of cases involving transnational large scale advanced fee fraud tends to lend credence on the one hand to the fact that it truly exists and gives some hope that it could be policed on the other.

Certain schools of thought have emerged in the study of the people, methods/models, and the victims. Making a huge demand on government financial security agencies, the society (family, community, religion), as well as the victims themselves.

My motivation for this post is owing to the fact that despite attempts from the above mentioned quarters to curtail the scale of advanced fee fraud (otherwise called 419 in Nigeria) new emerging methods keep coming up everyday, fresh victims keep falling and the security agencies keep being eluded by the smartness of these fraudsters.

Quite a number of advances have been made by these 419ners to me but you know, only a greedy fellow who does not want to work for money or cut corners will fall for their antics. Take for instance a fellow tells you his father owns the national stadium of a country and the National Petroleum Corporation and then you send him money to under-cut the company or sell to you illegally an undiscovered oil block and you fall flat for it? Well, I say you have a problem yourself. Nigeria is not a Kingdom where Monarchs have domain over natural resources, moreover you want to buy an oil block through the back door. If you ask me the victims are the 419ners.

Recently I was sent a mail from a so called Irish Lottery Agency that I have won 1,350,000.00 pounds. Such messages do not get delivered by e-mail, it is accompanied with a lot of publicity. Check out the value, do the arithmetic it comes to about =N=310,500,000.00. That you will agree with me is not small money. Then after the long story, I was told to pay some miserable sum of money for the opening of an account and courier.

Whosoever falls for this sort of trick is not just a fool but greedy and simply put a thief.

The consensus we can reach about 419 are basic and simple;
If you are greedy you fall, government agencies sometimes aid and abet 419, family, societal and religious leaders have a greater share of the blame than governments.

It is monster that feeds and survives on the greed of their victims.

They are a moving target and must be policed as such.

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