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Man Arrested in Australia Over Nigerian E-mail Scam
slasher_14 writes "A 39 year old Sydney man has been arrested over the Nigerian Scam. Simultanious raids were conducted in two homes by police, who siezed computers and documents.
Over the last 6 months, Australian police have tracked about 1.5 million dollars. The man faces Dubbo Local court today, charged with 17 offenses." Hopefully this means my inbox will be seeing less of these e-mails.
It's so nice to see that governments and police forces are finally able to catch up to these kinds of spammers and criminals to get them out of my damned inbox. I almost wonder if it wouldn't be cool for a Internet task force to be developed, completely divorced from any government that would try to track these kinds of people down and turn them in to local authorities. Any volunteers?
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d Capitalization really works: i helped my uncle jack off a horse
17 offenses? $1.5 million? Sounds like he's a small-time wannabe. Don't expect any noticable reduction in the number of scams in your mailbox.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
They can't seize that money, part of that 1.5 million is supposed to be mine. Dammit I got the emails to prove it too!
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
Let's feed him to the lions at the Western Plains Zoo (in Dubbo). ;)
TO: Slashdot.org community
Dear Sirs Madams
"I am Mrs. Mariam Abacha, the widow of Gen. Sani Abacha, The Late Nigerian Military Head of State. I am presently in distress and under House arrest while my son Mohammed is undergoing trial in Sydney by bribed officials in Australia. He is presently detained in prison custody. The government has frozen all the family account and auctioned all our properties.
To save the family from total bankruptcy and to save my son I have managed to ship to Europe and Asia through a Shipping company, the sum of US20, 000,000.00 respectively kept by my late husband."
You assistance is requested as a non-Nigerian citizen to assist in countering this crime. I will pay large sums in order to pay these bribed officials of Australia, in order to free my son. You will be paid most handsomely to aid in the transfer of these monies. If the funds can be transferred to your name, in your United States account, then you can forward the funds as directed by my associates. In exchange for your accommodating services I would agree to allow you to retain 10%, or US$4 million of this amount.
However, to be a legitimate transferee of these moneys according to Nigerian law, you must presently be a depositor of at least US$100,000 in a Nigerian bank which is regulated by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
If it will be possible for you to assist us, we would be most grateful. We suggest that you meet with us in person in Lagos, and that during your visit I introduce you to the representatives of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company, as well as with certain officials of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Please call me at your earliest convenience at [Phone Number]. Time is of the essence in this matter; very quickly the Nigerian Government will realize that the Central Bank is maintaining this amount on deposit, and attempt to levy certain depository taxes on it.
Man arrested for penis enlargement scam. 17 millions of penis inches were found during the raid...
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
that it really wasnt some jerk in Nigeria behind the scam.
Yep, it sure does. I can't wait until the catch the one guy sending the penis enlargement and the other guy sending the viagra spams. With the three of them behind bars, spam will pretty much cease to exist forever.
Check out The Ebola Monkey Man. Not only is it extremely funny, but it shows just how widespread the problem is, and just how far these fucks will go to try and steal your money.
"Proudly Posting Without Reading The Article"
Like... the centre of 419 spamming is Amsterdam and London AFAIK, and it's such a large business that arresting one guy is pretty much meaningless.
PCs should simply come with warning stickers: "ATTENTION: if anyone offers you money, advice on making money, or easy ways to make money, HE IS A CROOK. (if you don't believe us, please send $1000 to us in small bills IMMEDIATELY to learn it the hard way.)"
Ceci n'est pas une signature
http://www.secretservice.gov/alert419.shtml "The Financial Crimes Division of the Secret Service receives approximately 100 telephone calls from victims/potential victims and 300-500 pieces of related correspondence per day."
Send me AUD$50 and I'll hit him for you...
honest!
http://jesus.everdense.com/
Has anyone concidered how bad this might be for the local economy. After all, the $1.5M in the bank account was probably the only reason that the bank was even open...
:-)
I am just concerned how the local economy is going to handle so much less money coming in. This was probably 80% of the business at the bank
Darryl
We currently have this 1.5 Million dollars and are trying to return it to its rightful owners. If you have been subjected to this evil Nigerian money scam, please send your Name, Social Security Number, Date of Birth, and the amount stolen from you along with a bank account number where we can return your funds. Our e-mail address is u.r.sucker@hotmail.com. Please help us to right this terrible wrong:)
Here in the land of Oz, last night's broadcast news (and repeated this morning and again a few minutes ago on the mid-day news), this Australian arrest was part of multi-national raid involving basically every continent except Antarctica!!
IIRC some of the noteable arrests occured in Cairo, Amsterdam, Australia, Malaysia and Singapore. This was (is??) a global scam, but evidence is stacking up to suggest this Australian connection was one of the key players (not merely a pawn).
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Do these people who mimic the 419 scams also mimic the atrocious spelling, typos and poor command of the english language in most of the Nigerian scam emails I get? I just wonder how an Australian dude could pull off a _true_ Nigerian scam unless he gets all those little details just right.
obviously never had the pleasure of working a hekp desk job. Ownership of a computer has nothing to do with intelligence or common sense.
Bailif whack his pee pee.
(with apologies to Cheech & Chong)
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
The Lord's peace be with you!
I brother Fede Raltra working at a mission in the Decom district, Lagos, Nigeria. I am also the organizer of the annual Nigerian email conference. You are hereby cordially invited to the conference.
To register, send your address, daytime telephone numbe, name of your contact in Amsterdam, and the registration fee to me (the address on the page is out-dated):
Nigerian EMail Conference
c/o Fede Raltra
Decom Mission
600 Penn. Av. N. W.
Wa Shing
Ton D. C. 20580
Lagos
Nigeria
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
I got this email this morning...
...[bulk edited out - you get the idea] ... earning additional income, I will not waste your time. Remember, it won't cost
you a dime to check us out...sure might cost you an absolute fortune not to! http://www.ProTravelBiz.com Sincerely Robert Holman
Hello,Previously you had requested some information online in regards to potentially earning additional income from home.Our company Travelogia(one of the fastest growing companies in North America) has
it was from "abeulicnta@ebay.com" <ihmribcyph@sina.com> which is messed up because it's like a fake email within a fake email. Of course, it was formatted the same way you see here, no correct breaks or anything. Anyway, I go look up the website name on register.com's WHOIS feature. (Note: I had to hit refresh several times before I got more than a 'timeout') Well, this is what I got! (in the form of a gif image, go figure)
Organization:
Robert L. Holman II
Robert Holman II
4617 E Holiday Estate Court
Granbury, TX 76049
US
Phone: (817) 326-6107
Fax..: (817) 326-5066
Email: Robert@Robert-Holman.com
Registrar Name....: enom.com
Registrar Whois...: whois.enom.com
Registrar Homepage: http://www.enom.com
Domain Name: PROTRAVELBIZ.COM
Created on............: Mon, Oct 27, 2003 [Note the very recent creation date]
Expires on............: Wed, Oct 27, 2004
Record last updated on: Mon, Oct 27, 2003
etc, etc...
So I called him, apparently at his house, judging by the unceremonious, 'yeah this is Robert' answer. I confirmed it was Robert Holman and then proceeded to tell him I did not appreaciate his SPAM and he needed to at least put an opt out and use his real email address on the return. He stammered as he tried to tell me he could prove I 'opted-in' which is total bullshit. I told him if I got any more mail from him I was going to sue him.
So, my fellow SPAM-hating brethren and sistren, use WHOIS on register.com to fight back at these jerks.
I also used WHOIS to find out who was sending me bogus eBay login screens.
Slashdot Eds Link Anonymous Posts With Logged Posts
They Are Vermin Feeding On Each Other's Feces.
I Hate \.
I call fake. It wasn't written in ALL CAPS.
This is a site that was setup to fight the scam and to educate people.
... moved out of Australia. Maybe I should email him my bank details.
With the three of them behind bars, spam will pretty much cease to exist forever.
As long as there are lusers stupid enough to fall for it, someone will take their place.
With every caught spammer - fraudulent or "not fraudulent", authorities should be compiling lists of their customers for at least public humiliation, if not prosecution for aiding the spammers.
I'd love to see FTC ads: "The following is a public service announcement. Joe Brinkerhoff of Lubbock, Texas [show unflattering picture] purchased baste-on Magical Penis Enlargement Potion on January 16, 2003. You can thank him for giving spammers a reason to fill your mailbox with crap. Just thought you'd like to know." Add the threat of public humiliation and the stupid will think twice. I'm sure the PSAs could even become a TV show in their own right.
If it were up to me, they'd also be neutered and forced to wear bright red helmets with strobe lights for the rest of their natural lives.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
My friend's grandmother has this neighbor who was sort of the neighborhood whacko (schizophenia, medicated) He lived with his dad up until the time his father died and the estate was split up amungst the surviving siblings.
Well, he had a trusting nature about him, almost anyone could be his friend. Since he had been a roadie for many bands (Grateful Dead, Fleetwood Mac to name a few) for the price of getting him stoned you could listen to him go on for hours about his days as a roadie, while you fished out of his carp stocked green algae swimming pool. Although he was crazy, he was a fun guy to be around if you had a few hours to kill.
So here he was with all this money from his families estate. The house was sold, so he bought himself a luxery van to live out of. The rest of the money he put into money market accounts and had planned to live out the rest of his days cruising to concerts and playing his guitar out of the back of his van.
Tradgedy struck when the nigerian e-mail scam hit his inbox. He fell for it hook line and sinker. After arranging with the english accennted guy on the other end of the phone line, they agreed to meet in amsterdam to facilitate the transfer of funds (which was through cashiers check)
Even after he got off the phone, even when he was going to the bank, even when he stepped off the plane his sanity nagged, no pleaded with him "This is a scam Kim, please just go home". Sanity had never gotten him anywhere so he just ignored it.
He met the guy at some cannibus club, and after a few nice bowls of fine green, his sanity returned to his subconciousness, where it layed dormant most of the time. He handed the man the cashier check for $200,000 with full confidence he was doing the smart thing with his money.
Once returning to the states he tried dialing the number the man had given him, disconnected. He tried the e-mail address, no reply. 3 months after he had pissed away $200,000 on a cashier check and a handshake, he finally told his friends what had happened.
I posted this somewhere before on the nigerian scam, a lot of people responded "Serves him right for being stupid with his money" I don't agree with them though. We're talking about a guy with the emotional maturity of a 9 year old.
The same mentality that would perform this scam on weak minded and lonely adults is the same mentality that would take advantage of a little kid. Spare me the "Theives code of honor" I hope this guy gets life.
And the fact that the organization holding the ".org" domain (ISOC) is completely unwilling to chase down .org spammers, scammers and sleazeballs is all the more annoying. Their response to me
when I tried to complain about a spammer using a .org domain (with no whois info) as a hideyhole was (in essence) "Yes, we want the .org domain to be for non profits and the like, but we won't do anything about it, no matter how nasty the people are who are using the name."
A man in Australia, claiming to be a Nigerian, dupes people in the US!
Great post. People often say "you'd have to be insane to fall for that" or "you'd have to be an idiot to fall for that", and it may well be true. It would certainly explain the popularity of spamming and scamming.
There are plenty of people out there with Downs Syndrome or a low IQ or a mental illness thats make them gullible, and some percentage of them must have access to the internet.
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
Send me $50.00 and I'll explain it to you.
Now, if you spent even 0.5 seconds thinking about that, then you're starting to get into range.
Remember that these people work off of statistics. Regular scams, that take in $20-100 each only need 1/20,000 emails to catch a sucker to win. Nigerian scams make more money, so they really only need to catch someone with something like 1 in a couple million emails.
Now, if you don't think that there's anyboy with money who isn't willing to throw it someplace stupid go check out how SCO's stock is doing. Then think back to the dotcom boom when people were puting out business plans that essentially said "We're going to buy goods and sell them on the internet below cost", and still managed to get $5Million is seed capital.
If that doesn't work, there was the (brain-dead) secretary who thought that her boss would be so proud of her if she managed to make $6M with a 'simple' investment of $5,000. By the time the company auditors caught up with her she was in over her head to the tune of a couple hundred thousand dollars.
Of course, once you get someone like this, then you can really turn up the screws....
Dear Sir:
I'm a private investigator who has been looking into some shady dealings by a Mr. Mubaque in Nigeria. In investigating his crimes, I have determined that he has suckered you to the tune of $20,0000. Be aware that you are probably one of hundreds that he has scammed like this but I have only been able to determine the identity of you and 5 others.
I am very close to collecting enough evidence to put this bastard behind bars and recover the money he has scammed. My current investigations indicate that he has at least $8million in 12 bank accounts spread around the world. A successful prosecution against him would allow us to recover about 2/3 of this ammount ($5.3million). half of this ammount would be split between his victims and half ($2.65Million) would go to us as the principle investigators
Unfortunately, we are running short of funds to complete our investigation. Thus we come to you with this proposition:
If you would agree to support us in our investigation, we would be willing to share the reward with you on an equitable basis. After subtracting costs, we would be willing to share 1/3 (apx $700,000) with you as a benefactor.
This income would be completely legitimate, and we believe that we could put it under your control in a completely tax-free manner. If you are interested in this proposal please write me back. A very rapid response is needed, or we will lose our trail.
Sincerely.
Ura Looser, Private investigator.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
An old high school buddy called me about 2 weeks ago. His voice was all hushed, and he asked me if I knew anything about getting a bank account set up in a fake name.
Well, I thought about it for about 3 seconds, and started snickering. I said to him, is this, by any chance, for someone wanting to bring funds into the U.S.? He said yes...
I started to laugh out loud. I said to him, guess what, guy... You've got scam! I explained the 419 scam to him, and started to quote one (approximately) from memory. "Sound Familiar?" I asked him. Sheepishly, he said yes.
I have received about 50 of these so far, and I forward them to the FTC, with "No Financial Loss" heading up a copy of the email. They won't reply, but they will add it to their gallery of rogues. I hope this guy was one of the ones I turned in...
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
With the three of them behind bars, spam will pretty much cease to exist forever.
You know, I'm considering grepping my incoming e-mail for any messages which contain URLs with the term "biz" anywhere. Especially when .biz is the TLD. Discarding the message and teergrubing the originating server the moment they send an URL like that.
By my quick estimate, that would get rid of everything except the Nigerian spams... which are hopefully a thing of the past; I hope the sender - like all other spammers - gets colorectal cancer.
Anyone have any thoughts or experience with this?
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Robert Holman II
4617 E Holiday Estate Court
Granbury, TX 76049
US
Phone: (817) 326-6107
Fax..: (817) 326-5066
Gee, Granbury is just a few miles southwest of Ft. Worth, TX. Think there might be a few trick or treaters showing up at this slimeball's door tomorrow night?
And no one would even think of going to a local bookstore and grab a subscription postcard from all the magazines on the rack, fill in this slimeball's name and mail them in. Would they?
WOULD THEY??
I present as evidence, everyone who has ever been on Jerry Springer.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
I don't think you understand the depth of the problem. The people who "fall for" the 419 scam are almost certainly well aware that it's a scam, and they participate in hopes of scamming someone *else*. Remember the person who embezzeled from her company to fund a 419 trick? I'm betting she knew it was a scam the entire time, but somehow saw the whole thing as a means to an end of scamming someone else (maybe trying to proxy and embezzlement so that it looked like the "Nigerian" was responsible?)
I wonder how many people who follow through on these things are actually using it as a means to ripoff someone else, perhaps trying to make the victim appear so stupid that he won't report the theft...
Or maybe there *are* people who are actually stupid enough to really fall for 419. I'd say anyone THAT foolish would have been parted from his money long before now, and scams don't enter into it. No, I suspect there's more to the story, and I really do imagine that people see the 419 scam as an opportunity to play middleman and quietly funnel some money into their own pocket while connecting an unsuspecting victim to a blatant scammer. Maybe they think all the noise will be at the ends of the link, and the small change they grabbed in the middle will go unnoticed? I hope it's something like that. If there are that many people with money who are that stupid, I need to be thinking of legal, ethical ways of relieving them of some of it.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
They have an excellent How-to document here if you want to start up your own. They're not stupid people.. greedy people.
"Thank you for your $10,000, but now we need another $8,000 because of this new snag."
Worry of offending and thus losing the investment/s already made, lures people into upping the ante many times, probably while their stomach juices become increasingly more acidic and they tell themselves ever larger lies so as to be reassured that they are not being ripped off.
In some cases, people have finally been invited/persuaded to fly into Nigeria to settle the matter, (or wherever the scam is based), and have there been kidnapped and held for ransom.
There are dangerous, organized and well-funded people behind this scam. I hear they didn't just arrest some asshole in Australia, but an international ring of assholes. May they burn together in flaming tar for a thousand years.
Somebody here already noted. . . "You can't scam an honest person." --Unfortunately, this is not true. I know people who would from their kindness want to loan money with no hope or desire for reward in order to help somebody out.
Greed is certainly a big, big lure, but Vigilance and Knowledge are also required to ensure safety. I have a rule of thumb: "Never help a greedy person. Never help those who won't help themselves." --Rendering help to a selfish person means there is no chance of the favor being returned to you or anybody else, thus any energy spent in this way is simply sucked out of circulation. Pointless. "Pay It Forward" works wonderfully, but only if people actively avoid assholes and vampires.
-FL
this 'nigerian spam' idea has appeared in other forms as well.
i'm trying to sell my car and posted it on a few free car sales websites. so far, i've received 4 of emails exactly like this:
"We have a client who is interested in purchasing
your ( 2000 vw gti vr6 glx ) for the price of $( 14,500 ).Please forward me your final asking price "
of course, i then reply with the price confirmation, but then i get this:
"Hello,
Thanks a lot for your mail and the information, also for all your efforts towards making this transaction a success, i really love it and wish to buy as soon as possible. Anyway, this is how we are going to seal this transaction there is an associate of mine in the US who is owing me $19,800 i am going to instruct him to send you a cashier's check for that amount,and when it clears your bank you can now send my balance by Westernunion. Although i know that the value of the check is more than the price of the 2000 VW GTI VR6 GLX, but i am willing to trust you with my balance So if this offer is acceptable to you,let me have your contact information so that i can instruct my associate to send you a check,that is your name,address and phone number Please get back to me as soon as soon as you get this mail so that i can know your decision regards this transaction. I am banking on my balance so that i will be able to settle my shippers here in there local office because it is cheaper and faster.My regards to the family
Banks"
so this scam basically falls upon the same principle. obviously we all know where this is going, but i decide to play along anyway and sent him a bogus PO box to send the check to.
the next email was this:
"Thanks so much for the mail and the rightful information. Anyway, i just want you to know that what is required is your physical address and phone number, so as to deliver the payment to you in person. So, do well to let me have your Full name, physical address and phone number, in order to get the payment to you as soon as possible. And what do you mean by "terrifc deal"?. Waiting to hear back from you soon. Thank you and God bless.
Regards
Banks"
my question: why does he need my physical address and phone number? it's obvious at this point he will let me know about some snag and that i need to send him some money for whatever reason.
on a side note, i am selling my Volkswagen GTI VR6 GLX if anyone is interested.
so, people selling their autos online, be wary of this scam.
In Soviet Russia, YOU send email scams to Nigeria!
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
"We get a lot of mail complaining about people committing crimes via email. But since we're only really interested in arresting terrorists and drug dealers, we don't have the resources to go after these people. And even if we did, we think this is just an aggressive sales model, or so our Wall Street overlords tell us."
It exists, it's called televangelism....
Oh legal AND ethical... well one out of two isn't so bad, is it ?
The Aussi courts should really let the guy go. They should just release his picture, name, address, phone number, addresses of his relatives and friends, the name of his college, and they should track him and keep the public updated about his whereabouts. The ensuing witchhunt will demonstrate the public's true willingness to put in effort to get rid of spam.
If this was Saudi Arabia, they would tie him to a post and let anyone who has received more than 1000 emails in one day give this guy a bonk in the nose. I know I would pity him real soon.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
More info on the Nigerian scam at Snopes.
People falling for this kind of scam just confirms the fact that hydrogen and stupidity are the two most common elements. Not necessarily in the listed order I might add.
This message has been ROT-13 encrypted twice for higher security.