A story in the paper The Australian reports that Queenslanders are losing over $500K per month to Nigerian scammers, and the amount is growing about 15% per year.
While this is interesting in itself, I found some of the other information in the article more so. For example, Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has been working closely with the Queensland Police authorities to identify and then arrest scammers residing in Nigeria who are targeting Queenslanders. Nine have been arrested and are pending trial so far.
In fact, according to the story, the EFCC has successfully convicted 200 scammers over the past five years, which is something one doesn't hear much about here in the US.
Furthermore, Nigerian authorities are saying that their crackdown is now forcing scammers to move to other African countries. "The big players don't want to do business in Nigeria any more," claims Abdulkarim Chukkol, an EFCC representative.
In addition, it appears that the next type of big scam in Australia is on-line dating: "... romance scams are the big new threat - we're seeing a great deal of energy being put into victimising people through online dating websites," says Detective Superintendent Brian Hay, operations commander of the Fraud and Corporate Crime Group of the Queensland Police.
Finally, the Nigerian EFCC authorities said in the story that there are over 150 million Nigerian citizens, and it is only a small number who are actively engaged in on-line scamming. A fair point that we all probably need to remember, even as we receive yet another, "Dear Sir, I have recently come into some money and need help ..." email.
Comments (2)
There is much more advanced Nigerian scam going around than the "We need your help ..". It comes via a friend's hijacked Hotmail, Yahoo, etc. mail address telling he has been robbed in an exotic country, like Nigeria, and urgently needs a hundreds to get out. An address in London suburbs is given to send a Western Union money transfer. When I checked, it is an obscure, big hostel-type house with people moving in and out all the time. To get the money out, they dare to ask the sender to e-mail the transfer document to them via the hijacked e-mail address. Quite likely some older people will send the reasonable sounding sum to their friend in fake distress.
Posted by Sakari Mattila | May 29, 2008 5:36 PM
Posted on May 29, 2008 17:36
Scammers, hackers and identity thieves!
We need much more severe penalties to deal with these morons and the word "mercy" should never enter into the discussion. I dare say that we should consider penalties like life inprisonment with hard labor under the most severe conditions and without even the possibility of parole. The penalty for the worst offenders should be death by hanging within 72 hours of sentencing.
I wonder how of these perps would remain in that line of work after a few of their "friends" were dealt with in such a manner?
Posted by Michael Camburako | July 21, 2008 10:53 AM
Posted on July 21, 2008 10:53