Saturday, August 05, 2006

419 Artists Arrested and Tie to Funding Terrorists Suspected

Nigerian fraud has become "Internet folklore" and there are many sites on the Internet about it.

In recent years - a unit of law enforcement professionals have been waging war against fraud in Nigeria - and as a result, it's not very safe to commit fraud in Nigeria anymore. Here is a story of a recent arrest, where it appears that 419 (advance fee fraud) might have been helping fund a terrorist group:

"The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, have arrested a terrorism suspect in a raid on a cybercafe, NetXpress, located on Road 51, Festac town, Lagos. The commission disclosed that 13 other suspects caught in the act of sending scam mails to Europe and America, were also arrested."

"The suspect who claimed to represent a faceless terror group, Terrorist International was caught demanding payoff from a multinational oil company to forestall the kidnap of its expatriate staff in the Niger Delta. The other suspects were caught sending scanned documents purportedly issued by Chief Executives of Nigerian government agencies such as the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC."

Link from the EFCC site, here.

Of note, Nigeria recently passed a pretty strict law on advance fee (419) activity entitled the Advance Fee Fraud Act. This law allows for cyber-cafe owners and even the landlords to be arrested if 419 activity is occurring on their premises.

Advance fee activity is a worldwide problem and it's not only done by Nigerians. Catching this group undoubtedly saved a lot of people in other countries from being victimized.

There seems to be a lot of speculation from the law enforcement community that Internet fraud (a worldwide problem) is being used to fund terrorist groups. In this recent case, the EFCC has helped validate this.

Here is a previous post - with links to others - regarding concerns by law enforcement that Internet fraud might be a source of terrorist funding:

Great Britain Creates National Fraud Squad to Fight Organized Crime and Terrorists

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Money laundering scam, with website.


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Ed Dickson said...

Also known as (a.k.a.) a check cashing scam.

These people even troll the job sites - like Monster.com.

Thanks for the great example.

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