Have you seen this one?

CONFIDENTIAL

Dear Sir,

Good day and compliments. This letter will definitely come to you as a huge surprise, but I implore you to take the time to go through it carefully as the decision you make will go off a long way to determine the future and continued existence of the entire members of my family.

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Dr. (Mrs.) Mariam Abacha, the wife of the late head of state and commander in chief of the armed forces of the federal republic of Nigeria who died on the 8th of June 1998. …

My late husband had/has Eighty Million USD ($80,000,000.00) specially preserved and well packed in trunk boxes of which only my husband and I knew about. It is packed in such a way to forestall just anybody having access to it. It is this sum that I seek your assistance to get out of Nigeria as soon as possible before the present civilian government finds out about it and confiscate it just like they have done to all our assets.

I implore you to please give consideration to my predicament and help a widow in need.

How about this one?

PRIVATE BUSINESS PROPOSAL.

Dr. Idris Musa
No. 16 Kingsway Road
Ikoyi, Lagos
Nigeria.
Tel/Fax: 234-1-7747907

30th March, 2000.

First I must solicit your confidence in this transaction. This is by virtue of its nature as being utterly confidential and top secret. We are top officials of the Federal Government Contract Review Panel who are interested in importation of goods into our country with funds which are presently trapped in Nigeria. In order to commence this business we solicit your assistance to enable us RECIEVE the said trapped funds ABROAD.

The source of this fund is as follows : During the regime of our late head of state, Gen. Sani Abacha, the government officials set up companies and awarded themselves contracts which were grossly over-invoiced in various Ministries. The NEW CIVILIAN Government set up a Contract Review Panel (C.R.P) and we have identified a lot of inflated contract funds which are presently floating in the Central Bank of Nigeria (C.B.N).

However, due to our position as civil servants and members of this panel, we cannot acquire this money in our names. I have therefore, been delegated as a matter of trust by my colleagues of the panel to look for an Overseas partner INTO whose ACCOUNT the sum of US$31,000,000.00 (Thirty one Million United States Dollars) WILL BE PAID BY TELEGRAPHIC TRANSFER. Hence we are writing you this letter. We have agreed to share the money thus:

Look familiar? How about one more?

Forwarded

Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 12:10:20 -0700

From: Abdul Abacha < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

Subject: With the compliments of Abdul Abacha.

WITH THE COMPLIMENTS OF ABDUL ABACHA

I am Alhaji Abdul Abacha, son of the late Head of State of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, General Sanni Abacha who died under mysterious circumstances on the 8th of June 1998

After the death of my father, myself, and members of my family including my mother have been put through hell with interrogations, on account of corruption and mismanagement of public funds by my late father.

The aftermath of these interrogation has led to the continuous effort of the new President with co-operation from the Swiss government and other European countries to freeze, confiscate and recover monies belonging to my late father which were deposited in Swiss Bank accounts and in Bank Accounts in other European countries.

Our movement has been restricted, our travel documents seized and we have been forced to refund quite a huge amount of money which we earned through legitimate Government deals executed using the influence of my late father.

The reasons given by the present government for the harassment of my family constitutes a massive witch-hunting exercise by the numerous enemies made by my father in his bid to self succeed himself as President of Nigeria before his death.

These people presently control the socio-political structure and the economy of the country and are themselves guilty of the same crimes of non-accountability and probity leveled against my father.

It is a known fact that there is not one member of the present political class that have not been involved in corrupt practices in and out of the Government and have themselves amassed huge deposits in Foreign Banks.

Fortunately, just after the death of my father, my mother in anticipation of the present action of the new Government made arrangements to secretly move the sum of One Hundred and Fifty Five Million Dollars (US$155,000,000.00) in cash for safe-keeping in a security vault.

These funds have been in the vault since then and we feel that it is now necessary to move the funds out of Nigeria for fear of discovery and confiscation by the new regime in Nigeria.

We are therefore seeking a business partner with banking co-coordinates capable of accommodating such huge amounts and is able to manage or nominate trustees to manage these funds in the interim as we watch the political situation in Nigeria unfolds.

The foregoing are a few examples of the many variations of the “Nigerian 419 Scam.” According to Wikipedia, “The scam typically involves promising the victim a significant share of a large sum of money, which the fraudster requires a small up-front payment to obtain. If a victim makes the payment, the fraudster either invents a series of further fees for the victim, or simply disappears.” Now most of us realize immediately that such an offer is obviously a scam. We delete the email and move on with our lives. As Wikipedia notes, “One reason Nigeria may have been singled out is the apparently comical, almost ludicrous nature of the promise of West African riches from a Nigerian Prince. According to Cormac Herley, a researcher for Microsoft, ‘By sending an email that repels all but the most gullible, the scammer gets the most promising marks to self-select.’”

But there may be a nugget of truth buried in these email offers. You may have deleted something that was not, in fact, completely “ludicrous.” At least, the U.S. Government took some aspect of General Abacha’s alleged wealth seriously. So seriously, in fact, that it “forefeited” $480 Million of funds, and is seeking another $148 Million—bringing the Nigerian dictator’s known family wealth to roughly $628 Million. The U.S. Government would like it all, and is pursuing the funds in bank accounts located around the world.

That’s right. The General, his son, and at least one associate “systemically embezzled billions of dollars in public funds from the Central Bank of Nigeria.” They allegedly “withdrew the funds in cash and then moved the money overseas through U.S. financial institutions.”

Would you like to know more, courtesy of a recent Department of Justice press release?

The Department of Justice has forfeited more than $480 million in corruption proceeds hidden in bank accounts around the world by former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha and his co-conspirators. …

The judgment is the result of a civil forfeiture complaint the department filed in November 2013 against more than $625 million in the largest kleptocracy forfeiture action brought in the department’s history. The forfeiture judgment includes approximately $303 million in two bank accounts in the Bailiwick of Jersey, $144 million in two bank accounts in France, and three bank accounts in the United Kingdom and Ireland with an expected value of at least $27 million. The ultimate disposition of the funds will follow the execution of the judgment in each of these jurisdictions. Claims to an additional approximately $148 million in four investment portfolios in the United Kingdom are pending. …

So, yeah. There really was a Nigerian General Abacha. He really had a son. They really did have millions upon millions of dollars hidden in banks in multiple countries. They really did launder their ill-gotten gains. All that stuff is true.

What is less true, of course, is that you could have a piece of that fortune if only you would join the conspiracy. The real conspirators never needed your help; they did just fine laundering the funds on their own. And now the U.S. Government is collecting as much of that dirty laundered money as it can locate, and we believe it will eventually be returned to the Nigerian citizenry, from whom it was originally stolen.

So keep deleting those emails.