What is 419 – Nigerian Advance Fee Fraud?
The criminals behind Nigerian Advance Fee Fraud, which takes its international name ‘419 fraud’ after the section of the Nigerian penal code that deals with fraud, work to a number of variations of their scam. It is commonly believed that the victim’s bank account details are requested early on in the dialogue so that the fraudsters can withdraw all the victim’s money. This is rarely the case. A victim who willingly divulges their bank account details provides a signal to the fraudsters that they have secured another victim. The most common version of Advance Fee Fraud is the fund transfer scam. This is also the scam that reaps some of the best rewards for the fraudsters. Typically, an individual, or sometimes a company, receives a letter from someone claiming to be a Nigerian civil servant to whom the Nigerian government has overpaid millions of dollars in a procurement contract. In the letter, the fraudster will claim that he is looking for a reputable individual or foreign company w
