“NIGERIAN 419 SCAM” TARGETS ASIANS

Police in San Francisco reported this month a variation of the “Nigerian 419 Scam” targeted at Asians. The email scam offers Asian recipients millions of dollars from the bank account of a deceased Iraqi army officer.

The e-mail is a variant of a scam in which the sender offers the recipient a share of a large sum of money but first requires the victim to send personal information and funds to obtain the full payout.

The sender of the email is “Peter Wong” who uses a Yahoo Hong Kong e-mail account, and says he is the director of operations for Hang Seng Bank, Ltd.Police say Wong tells the recipient that an Iraqi client, Major Fadi Basem, and his family have been killed, leaving $24,500,000 in a Hang Seng Bank account.Wong says that as the family has no beneficiaries, the money will go to the Chinese government if there is no claim.He then reportedly offers to have documents falsified to help the e-mail recipient pretend to be a member of Basem’s family and claim the money.According to police, Wong says he will take 60 percent of the money received, with the remaining 40 percent going to the e-mail recipient.

The Financial Times recently reported that the classic “Nigerian 419 Scam” continues to defraud thousands in the USA and the UK even though public knowledge of the scam is widespread.