Nigerian Scammers Brought to Justice 345
KaushalParekh writes "Almost all of us get those junk emails from someone in Africa usually promising millions of dollars if you give them your bank details. Finally good to know that they are being caught by the authorities and punished. These are also known as 419 emails named after the Nigerian penal code for fraud. As an interesting aside, fooling these scammers by responding to their emails is a fun passtime for quite a few who call themselves baiters. Check out the trophy pictures of these spammers.. pretty funny."
No fun (Score:4, Insightful)
Kids, do not do this at home. These people may seem stupid (at times), but they are full blown criminals and quite probably organized criminals at that. From the 419eater website: "Violence and threats of physical harm may be employed to further pressure victims. In June of 1995, an American was murdered in Lagos, Nigeria, while pursuing a 4-1-9 scam, and numerous other foreign nationals have been reported as missing."
This is not fun. Really.
It happened to me (Score:5, Insightful)
Luckily I figured the whole thing out in time, I nearly sent them a western union money order for $1200 to cover the 'financial legal fees' involved in processing and transferring the 'winnings' into my back account.
I'll admit that I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but these guys had a pretty convincing and elaborate scheme going. I forwarded all of their contact information to a bank in Amsterdam whose name and letterhead they were using. Hopefully they took action.
Re:It happened to me (Score:3, Insightful)
Being told by a website that you've randomly won half a million dollars would fall under that category, I think.
Re:It does not work like that... (Score:1, Insightful)
No, that is not the right thing to do. The people who live there must make whatever changes they want. They must be the ones to organize, to decide their own future. It does not work, when the USA goes into a country and tells the people "we are giving you democoracy". Who knows, maybe the people would figure out a better system than democoracy. What if they became a communist nation, with everyone living in equality, where every citizen was gaurenteed a share of the oil profits. There is so much money in oil, who knows, to people who live off $1 per day, the oil might have made them relativly wealthy compared to how they live now. Maybe the people would want to use the money to start schools, that are free and open to all their citizens with no tuition charged. Maybe everyone would get free health care. Who knows what they would do, but there is a chance they might reject capitalism, where one person makes moeny off others.
Exxon went in and profited from the situation? No kidding! What would you suggest? Another useless oil embargo where no oil company can go in and drill for oil? You know that would last all of five seconds.
What I suggest is not using USA money to help a King who acts like a dictator, who steals from his own people. The oil does not belong to the King. This is a dirty deal between an American company and a greedy King. The USA has every right to tell its companies, you can not help support or fund a person who would sell all his natural resources, and then use that money to supress his own people. That does not mean that we go in there fighting them. We just don't support them with money. Let the King find a way to drill the oil himself, maybe he would be forced to educate enough of his own citizens. Maybe that would lead to people questioning how the oil is being used, where the money is going. I agree, Exxon buying the oil for $.02 on the dollar is a steal for Exxon. But imagine if the people who lived there could drill it themseleves. They would have 50 times as much revenue. How do the United Arab Emirates drill their oil? I think I remember reading that every single citizen of that country is a millionair because the country shares the oil profits with every citizen.
It's *his* Kingdom. He can do whatever the hell he wants to do to it. And they're *his* people, they will live as well or as poorly as he allows him to.
It is not his Kingdom any more than the people allow him to keep his title. There have been good Kings throught history; Kings the people loved and adored. It is true that most would let greed take over, and would become lustful of power. But some Kings have trully loved their people, and have had long lines of monarchs that were good to the people.
Erik, you are making the mistake of thinking other countries would be better off as democoracies or capitalist nations. Maybe they would, maybe they would not. Some countries have strong ties to tradition, and their culture is incompatible with a capitalsim. If I lived in Africa and was poor, and lived off a few farm animals and whatever crops I could grow, I think I would preffer that lifestyle to a capitalism system where a factory forces everyone off their land, and into working for pennies.
If this King was good, what he would have done is taken the deal with Exxon for the first 3 or 4 years. He would have built schools, hospitals, and basic services his people need. He would have put together a team to learn how to drill oil for themselevs. And after the contract with Exxon expired, the King would have used his own people to drill for oil. Maybe in one generation, the King could have built enough schools and universities and telephone lines, that his people would be competing with India for outsourcing contracts. ;)
Re:It does not work like that... (Score:3, Insightful)
Bullshit. The whole point of your post was a tired rant about evil oil companies.
The real "greed and self love" criminal here is the king who selfishly profited off his country's resources, squandered the money on vanity items he never used, and killed/imprisoned his own people.
Yet you brush him off as just an idiot being exploited by big oil. Even though this "idiot" taught himself French and runs a censorship program in his own country (not a small task).
Your bias goes so deep that you even accuse Exxon of helping the king kill people ("Why was Exxon helping the King kill his own people"). It would be suicide for any global publicly-traded corporation to support the slaughter of innocent people. Exxon might of owned the helicopters (commonly used when exploring landscapes for oil drilling), but it was the king and his greed that took them and filled them with soldiers. It was the king that ordered the soldiers to kill dissenters.
But you don't care... you don't see one of Africa's main problems as being the corrupt tyrants that rule it... you don't see the Africa rich enough in resources that it's capable of feeding everyone but yet it's mismanaged by murderous dictators... you don't see the jobs and skills training that Exxon brought in... to you the problem is the evil "big corporations" and other such communist garbage.
A suggested correction (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, if scammers tracked down and killed every baiter that came their way, the human population would have halved in the past few years. That hasn't happened, so my guess is that scammers only go after vigilantes who actually get physically in their way, pose an actual threat or who have managed to convince the scammer that there is an actual threat.
If a criminal decides there is actual danger to life and limb, they are probably going to take the path of least resistance, especially if it is in a relatively lawless area or if there is minimal risk to them personally.
On the other hand, if they have absolutely zero idea of where you are in the world, are pretty sure you pose no danger beyond a sanity check, and are not part of some rival gang, then almost any action they take is likely to put themselves in danger for negligable or zero benefit. I doubt many scammers would find that appealing.
If you mess with a scammer involved in an "Organized Crime" gang, all bets are off. There is really no telling what might happen then. However, most scammers are likely loners and spam merchants of equal skill to your typical skript-kiddie. (That is why most such scams are near-identical and obvious to anyone with more than one brain cell. Anyone with a modicum of skill is likely to be rather better at social engineering and much harder to detect.)
Re:may be the shooting helped? (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason why 419 continue to be at this level is the extreme corruption in Nigeria, Kongo and a number of other African governments.
Also, while it is not the only reason, it is one of the reasons behind the extreme poverty and famine in Africa. For example when 20%+ of Swazi population is dieing of AIDS the king of Swazilend used international aid money on buying new BMWs for his existing 9 wives, refurbishing their palaces and arranging a wedding ceremony for the 10th.
Frankly shooting people like him may be the right approach when dealing with extreme poverty in Subsaharan Africa.
The best way to use the Live8 money would have been to hire a good gang of contract hitmen and "clean it up".
Multiple times if necessary.
Unfortunately it will be given to the same corrupt genocidal f***heads which are in charge now.
A surprising number of people are fooled. (Score:3, Insightful)
Secondly, in order to win a contest, you must first enter. This is one time where "nothing for nothing" really does apply.
Thirdly, if you don't supply someone with your e-mail address, then they don't know who you are, where you are, or indeed anything else. Many sales staff have gimicks, but they rely on being effective at drawing in potential customers. Drawing in someone who won't buy anyway is of no use to them, so that isn't the sort of person they are going to promote to.
Finally, almost any competition with a large prize attached will cost more to win than the prize is actually worth. That is why lottery corporations are richer than even the most successful of "winners". Indeed, there would be little point in running a lottery if they weren't.
Re:It does not work like that... (Score:3, Insightful)
Exxon did not bring in any jobs or skills training.
The only thing Exxon did was build a small airport, so they could fly workers and executives from the USA to the African nation. Every single worker on the oil drill was a foriegner, not one was a member of that African nation.
Your bias goes so deep that you even accuse Exxon of helping the king kill people
It was helicopters that belonged to Exxon. The King requested the use of those helicopters, and it was pilots who were employed by Exxon that flew the dictators Army gunners. Exxon could have said "no, we can't let you use the helicopters". The king would have had 2 choices. #1) not use the helicopters, or #2) forcefully use the helicopters and ruin his contract.
It would be suicide for any global publicly-traded corporation to support the slaughter of innocent people.
Didn't Debeers pay governments in Africa to send para-military forces to murder and kill all villagers in places where diamonds were discovered, so debeers would own all the rights to those mines?
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0971394296/ 104-6389934-4402348 [amazon.com]
But you don't care...
No, you are the one who does not care. You cash your paycheck and don't think twice about where the money came from and where it is going. I don't know if you are a christian, but avarice/gluttony is one of the deadly sins.
Re:Takes time (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:It does not work like that... (Score:2, Insightful)
Ah, but democracy on its own won't do much to get people out of poverty. Congo is a "democratic republic", but allows little political freedom [freedomhouse.org], and is riddled by conflict [wikipedia.org]. Zimbabwe has a political system modelled on British democracy, but is run by a madman dictator who's killing thousands [bbc.co.uk].
There are even "real" democracies in Africa (in the sense of having truly free elections) that suffer massive poverty; consider Zambia [wikipedia.org].
If you read anything about Live 8 beyond the concerts themselves, or about the issues at the G8 meeting, you'd know that the real causes of African poverty involve corruption among African leaders, lack of effective rule of law, and an unwillingness among the people to challenge the status quo. It's not like you can just do an Iraq -- invade, install democracy, and hope all goes well thereafter. These problems are complex and long-term.