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Many of
these fraudsters recognize that victims from the Americas and many
other venues could be reluctant to visit what might be perceived as
a dangerous Third World country, but would have no such concerns
about traveling to London, Paris, Amsterdam, Sydney or Capetown.
Particularly in cases where a victim is becoming skeptical or
demanding, many of these fraudsters now set up meetings in
international cities, using confederates who pose as officials of
the Central bank of Nigerian, the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation or consultants, attorneys or accountants involved with
the project.
Oftentimes, at these meetings, the victims are given the opportunity
to leave with substantial funds provided by the fraudsters. . . but
just before the money is turned over, some problem involving red
tape arises.
However, no one can say these fraudsters are not creative. For
instance in one case, a victim with limited funds had taken on a
partner as a co-investor. After being fleeced of several
thousand dollars, these victims demanded that they be compensated
for their expenses to date and be provided with some additional
financing to be used as working capital. Their Nigerian
contact readily agreed and arranged a meeting at an upmarket London
hotel between one of his agents and one of the partners.
While one victim was in London, the one who remained in the U.S.
came across our Web site and immediately understood their deal was a
fraud. When he reached his fellow victim in London, he learned
that the initial meeting had taken place and that the Nigerian
contact had showed him a suitcase containing several million dollars
and had been ready to turn over a couple hundred thousand for
expenses. However, the money this victim was shown was marked
with a dye which had to be removed first and a second meeting was
scheduled to work out the best way of handling this.
The victim who had remained in the U.S. later reported that
everything seemed to be working out well, however.
Surprisingly his partner had an unexpectedly visitor, a
"special policeman" who showed up at his hotel room and
advised that there would be a "huge reward" from the
government if this victim was willing to assist in the recovery
of this "marked" money.
There were, however, some costs involved with this special
investigation, which the victim would have to pay up front, but this
advance fee funding was insignificant in comparison with amount of
the "huge reward".
It should be obvious that meeting these fraudsters in person can
prove to be dangerous, regardless of where the meeting takes
place. In July of 2001, one victim flew to Johannesburg, South
Africa where his Nigerian "partners" promptly kidnapped
him and held him for ransom in the East Rand District. (He was
rescued a couple days later after police were able to trace phone
calls.)
It appears kidnapping incidents such as this are becoming a more
common feature of these scams.
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