Advance Fee Fraud

A SPECIFIC TYPE of fraud that has become synonymous with African-based criminal groups, and Nigerian criminal enterprises in particular, is popularly referred to as advance fee fraud (also called “419 Fraud” after the relevant section of the Nigerian Criminal Code). This fraud scheme emerged in the early 1980s and is a variation of the confidence swindle, which preys on peoples' greed and naively. Advance fee fraud targets individuals and businesses offering huge sums of money from government officials or businessmen in African countries. The targets of the fraud—which include businesses and individuals—receive a solicitation (by letter, fax, and increasingly e-mail) from a businessman or ex-government official in an African country, promising that a large sum of money (often in the tens of millions of dollars) will be deposited into the target's bank account. In return, the recipient of the letter is offered a percentage of the total amount that purportedly will be wired or transferred from Nigeria (or another African country).

The solicitation will ask its prospective victim to respond to the correspondence, including name, address, phone number, and banking information. Subsequent correspondence will ask for a processing fee from the target before the money can be transferred. This fee is often in the tens of thousands of dollars. The letter will often provide specific directions on how this fee should be paid (usually a wire transfer to an overseas bank account). Once the processing fee is deposited, the funds are quickly withdrawn, and the perpetrators either disappear or attempt to coax even more money from the victim. Some schemes have gone so far as to have victims fly to an African country, where they are extorted for even more money through intimidation and violence. Of course, no funds ever transferred to the target.

The funds that are purportedly to be deposited in a target's account are frequently described as money that must be quickly and surreptitiously transferred out of an African country due to a number of reasons, such as a civil war, bankruptcy fraud, an unclaimed bank account or inheritance, or the embezzlement of money from a government or business. Regardless of the specific claim, the source of the funds is frequently held out as illegally derived. This tactic is used to increase the credibility of the offer (relying on widely held awareness of corruption in African countries) and to deter any victims who accept the offer from going to police due to their own perceived complicity in an illegal action. Although originated by Nigerian criminal groups, advance fee fraud scams now originate in a number of African countries and use internal conflicts or other circumstances specific to that country as a pretense under which funds must be transferred abroad. Below is just one example of hundreds of thousands of advance fee fraud letters (in this case, via spam e-mail).