A man believed to be part of a group of identity scammers was arrested in Florida Tuesday during a routine traffic stop. Rilwan Soetan, one of the U.S. Secret Service’s “Most Wanted”, was stopped by State Department Agriculture agents, with other people’s personal documents, multiple cell phones and $6,000 in cash.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with the Nigerian Scam you really should crawl out from under your rock more often, but here’s how it works. Letters, or more often emails, postmarked from Nigeria, Sierra Leone, or the Ivory Coast, as well as several other foreign countries, are sent to large mailing lists. The emails promise rewards to anyone that will help officials from that country’s government or banks out of embarrassing situations or legal problems. The typical pitch is that you will be permitted to keep a large portion of the multi-million dollar sums if you help them get the funds out of their country.

Anyone that falls for the scam is conned into providing money to assist with government paperwork, bribes, etc. Since they are blinded by the prospect of making a few million dollars as their percentage, they can easily be bilked out of thousands of dollars before they begin to wonder and by then it’s too late and the scammers disappear.

Here’s an example letter:

Dear Sir,

I am Markson Kamara the only son of late former Director of finance, Chief Vincent R. Kamara of Sierra-Leone diamond and mining corporation. I must confess my agitation is real, and my words are my bond in this proposal. My late father diverted this fund acquired from the over influencing of price of sales/purchasing of raw materials., now he deposited the money with a BANK IN ABIDJAN BY FIXED DEPOSIT FORM, where I am residing under political asylum with my younger sister Juliet who is 17 years old. Now the war in my country is over with the help of ECOMOG soldiers, the present government of Sierra Leone has revoked the passport of all officers who served under the former regime and now ask countries to expel such person at the same time, freeze their account and confiscate their assets, it is on this note that I am contacting you, all I needed from you is to furnish me with your bank particulars:

1) Bank name
2) Account name
3) Account number
4) Bank address, telephone and fax numbers to enable me transfer this money in your private bank account, the said amount is tweenty Six Million United States Dollars (US$26.000.000.00).

I am compensating you with 20% of the total money amount, now all my hope is banked on you and I really want to invest this money in your country, where there is stability of Government, political and economic welfare. Honestly I want you to believe that this transaction is real and never a joke. My late father Chief Kamara gave me the photocopy of the deposit certificate issued to him by the BANK IN ABIDJAN on the date of deposit, and he called me closer to his bed side before his call to glory (R.I.P) that I should pray to God first, before contacting any foreigner and he warned me strictly not to deal with a greedy and evil minded people since this is the only legacy we are inheriting from him.

Please, for you to be clarified because, I do not expose myself to anybody I see, I believe that you are able to keep this transaction secret for me because this money is the hope of my life, it is important. Please contact me immediately after you must have gone through my message, and feel free to make it urgent. That is the reason why I offered you 20 % of the total amount, and in case of any other necessary expenses you might incure during this transaction including your telephone calls.

N.B: Try and negotiate for me some profitable blue chip investment opportunities which is risk free that I can invest with this money when it is transferred to your account, and you will be our guardian, personally I am interested in estate management and hotel business, please advise me. Contact me immediately you receive this message for more explanation. And promise me and Juliet my younger sister to be a father considering our situation and not to betray us please.

Thanks and God bless

Best regards

Markson / Juliet Kamara
(markson2@latinmail.com)

P.S. My late father used me the only son as the beneficiary / next of kin on the day of deposit and also told me that I need an assistance of a foreigner with a legitimate bank Account abroad who will stand as co-beneficiary and partner abroad.

I’m always tempted to laugh when I hear about someone being taken by this scam, but unfortunately there are a lot of gullible people out there and no one deserves to be conned out of their money, no matter how silly it seems.

One can only hope now that they’ve caught one of these bastards that the system doesn’t set him free with a slap on the wrist. Considering the fact that this man and people like him have actually ruined people’s lives, I’d be just fine with imposing the death penalty.

Source: Local6.com

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