I think this is the first time I receive a 419 type of scam mail from Hong Kong. It is of the no next of kin type. A large sum of money has been left with no heirs, and the scammer wants to “save” the money from supposedly corrupt and greedy government officials.

The recepient is invited to help, thereby participating in quite illegal activities. Those who reply, will be asked to start paying bribes and cover costs. And believe me, it can be quite costly. The bottom line however, is always the same. There are no money to collect.

From: chelder@gmx.net
Subject: Your Assistance Sollicited
Date: Januari 22, 2005 15.22.02 MET

MR. Wang Qin.
HANG SENG BANK LTD,
DES VOEUX RD.BRANCH
CENTRAL HONG KONG
HONG KONG.

I am Mr. Wang Qin, credit officer of Hang Seng Bank Ltd, I have an urgent and very confidential business proposition for you.I honestly apologize and hope I do not cause you much embarrassment by contacting you through this means for a transaction of this magnitude,but this is due to confidentia lity and prompt access reposed on this medium,sorry my English is not very good.

Furthermore,due to this issue on my hands now, it became necesary for me to seek your assistance, and it is imperative for me to know your opinion.On sept.6,1999, an American Oil consultant/contractor with the chinese Solid Minerals Corporation, Mr. Richard Nault made a numbered time (Fixed) Deposit for twelve calendar months, valued at US$30,000,000.00 (ThertyMillion Dollars only) in my branch.

Upon maturity,I sent a routine notification to his forwarding address but got no reply. After a month, we sent a reminder and finally we discovered from his contract employers, the Hong Kong Solid Minerals Corporation that Mr. Richard Nault died from an automobile accident. On further investigation, I found out that he died without making a WILL, and all attempts to trace his next of kin was fruitless.

I therefore made further investigation and discovered that Mr. RichardNault did not declare any kin or relations in all his official documents,including his Bank Deposit paperwork in my Bank. This sum of US$30,000,000.00 is still sitting in my Bank and the interest is being rolled over with the principal sum at the end of each year.

No one will ever come forward to claim it. According to Laws of Hong Kong, at the expiration of 5(five) years,the money will revert to the ownership of the Hong Kong Government if nobody applies to claim the fund.Consequently, my proposal is that I will like you as a foreigner to stand in as the next of kin to Mr. Richard Nault so that the fruits of this old man’s labor will not get into the hands of some corrupt government officials.This is simple, I will like you to provide immediately your full names and address so that the attorney will prepare the necessary documents and affidavits that will put you in place as the next of kin.

We shall employ the services of an attorney for drafting and otarization of the WILL and to obtain the necessary documents and letter of probate/administration in your favor for the transfer.The money will be paid into your account for us to share in the ratio of 70% for me and 25% for you and 5% for Expenses Incurred in the course of the transaction.

There is no risk at all as all the paperwork for this transaction will be done by the attorney and with my position as the credit officer guarantees the successful execution of this transaction.If you are interested,please reply immediately.You may reply to my email box, qinwang45@netscape.net Upon your response. I shall then provide you with more details and relevant documents that will help you understand the transaction.Please send me your confidential telephone and fax numbers for easy communication. You should observe utmost confidentiality, and rest assured that this transaction would be most profitable for both of us because I shall require your assistance to inves my share in your country.

Awaiting your urgent reply.

Thanks and regards.
Mr. Wang Qin

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I’m getting immensly rich! What should I do with all this money I keep winning? I have already won a million Euro at least ten times this year, and today I received the below notice that I have won two more millions.

Now wait… Why didn’t they tell me until now? The draw was in July 2003 and they didn’t tell me about my riches until now? And why have they formatted their mail in such a bad manner?

Of course it’s a scam. The sender (the alleged Eddy McGavin or if it’s Lylian Donald) wants me to confirm my email addres. Then I will go inte their files as a gullable person. After that they will want me to fill out a claims form, and most probably register for a sum that can be just about anything between 100 and 1,000 €. But I won’t. And anyway, I have now breached the confidentiallity of their notice, and disqualified myself.

Ref. Number: 132/756/4509
Batch Number: 538901527-Bc68
Ticket Number: 27522465896-6453
Dear Sir/Madam,
We are pleased to inform you of the result of the Winners in our
International Lottery Program held on the 16th of July, 2003.Your e-mail
address attached to ticket number 27522465896-6453 with serial number
3772-554 drew lucky numbers 7-14-18-31-45 which consequently won in the 2ND category, you have therefore been approved for a lump sum pay out of 2,000,000 EUROS (Two Million Eur).
CONGRATULATIONS!
Due to mix up of some numbers and names, we ask that you keep your winning information confidential until your claims have been fully processed and your money Remitted to you. This is part of our security protocol to avoid multiple claims and unwarranted abuse of this program by some participants.All participants were selected through a computer ballot system drawn from over 20,000 company and 30,000,000 individual email addresses and names from all over the world. This promotional program takes place every five years.
This lottery was promoted and sponsored by a conglomorate of some
multinational companies in europe as part of their social responsibility
to the citizens in the communities where they have operational base.We
hope with part of your winnings you will take part in our next year Ten
million Euros international lottery.
To file for your claim, please contact our fiducial agent:
EDDY McGAVIN
McGavin & ASSOCIATES
Reply Email :eddymcgavin@netscape.net
Remember all winning must be claimed not later than 19th Feb 2005 .After this date all unclaimed funds will be included in the next stake.Please note in order to avoid unnecessary delays and complications,remember to quote your reference number and batch numbers in all correspondence.
Furthermore should there be any change of address do inform our agent as soon as possible.Congratulations once more from our members of staff and thank you for being part of our promotional program.
Note: Anybody under the age of 18 is automatically disqualified.
Yours Sincerely,
Mrs. Lylian Donald
International Lottery (co-ordinator)
N.B: Any breach of confidentiality on the part of the winners will result
to disqualification. Please do not reply to this mail. Contact your claims
agent.

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There is a first time for everything, and this is actually the first time an iScammer has gotten back to me after I publish their emails. Well, Kwezi Sibeko certainly did. He even made sure to put my address in his mail, thus making the double threat of taking legal action (which he will get nowhere with), and at the same time reminding me of the fact that he knows my address. What he sais is the old “we know where you live”.

Frankly, I don’t care if it’s me, his superiors, his company or his government he is trying to scam. I put the mail here in the iScam section since I strongly dissaprove of this type of emails. It was sent to not one, but two of my email addresses, and I’m quite sure more people than me received it. If you did too, please contact me.

Here’s a copy of a mail from him received this morning. (I guess he must have made a Google search for his name.)

From: “Kwezi Sibeko” kwezi@mail2world.com
Date: January 20, 2005 08.46.51 MET
To: [the address posted on the bottom of this page]
Subject: You have breached confidentiality issues

I remember writing to you asking for assistance, if you did not want to participate constructively in our request then why did you have to put it on your website without even having to call me to validate if my facts checked out or if your suspicions would come to nought.

I would please implore you take my letter off your site immediately and if my superiors find out I would showe no restraint in travelling to your country and seek legal redress on this issue because in my first letter, i warned you not to disclose any information given to you, so this can be considered a breach of confidentiality on your part.
Good day Sir.

Ph +46 (0)733 700 723 |
Fleminggatan 28
SE-112 32 Stockholm
Sweden

I guess this would be a good time to re-publish the non-disclosure footer in the original mail from Kwezi Sibeko:

This e-mail and any attachments are privileged and may contain confidential information intended for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure of this information is prohibited under applicable law.
The person addressed in the e-mail is the sole authorized recipient. Please notify the sender immediately if it has unintentionally reached you and do not read, disclose or use the content in any way.

I am certainly the person addressed in both the original emails. So it was intended for my use.

I have acted according to the privacy announcement used on this site, it’s available for anyone to read at
www.lindqvist.com/en/privacy-and-email-policy/

Here is my reply to him:

Good day to you too sir,

Actually, I have acted according to the privacy announcement used on Nikke’s Index. And since I was the intended recipient of your initial mail (I must have been, I recieved two emails with the exact same wording), and your email therefore was considered unsolicited spam as well as an attempted iScam, I did publish.

I have also published your the mail below. You’ll find it at
http://www.lindqvist.com/iscams/index.php?ID=1841

You’ll find the privacy announcement at
http://www.lindqvist.com/index.php?ID=1252

I truly hope this will be the last I hear from you in this matter.

Regards,
Nikke Lindqvist

Added: Actually, after seeing a very similar version of Sibeki’s original mail, published at 419legal.org, I’m not at all worried about his position with the Departement of Minerals and Energy. Read it at
www.419legal.org/pipermail/scamletters_419legal.org/20040920/002636.html

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This is actually the first time I see a Danish Tiscali address used for sending iScams. But that’s not the only strange detail in this offer from the so-called Mrs Rosa Jonas. I can’t help but wonder why she inherited the first name of late UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi instead of his surname Savimbi… And why should I contact Charles, and not “Mrs Jonas” herself?

Questions and more questions…

Here goes, a piece of Nigerian-Angolan-Danish 419 iScam. According to the headers, it actually looks as if it has been sent from Denmark. Read the rest of this entry »

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If you even for a second or so had your hopes up for ghe grand prize of 1 million Euros in the so-called Loteria EuroBote, I’m sorry to say, I won too. And isn’t it strange? I think this is the tenth lottery I won this year…

Techniqually speaking it was Drinkalizer.com that won, since the email address must have been harvested from the Drinkalizer.com site.

Update: Lance Smith answered the scammers! They seem to settle for 745 dollars, and the full process took over a week. See his mail exchange here.

EMAIL LOTTERY ROLLOUT INTERNATIONAL

Ref. Number: 034/834/1853
Batch Number: 4427-4184-MN 82

Sir/Madam
We are pleased to inform you about the result of the Loteria EuroBote Winners International programs held on the 28th
December,2004.
Your e-mail address attached to ticket number 004098045- with serial number 3282-912 drew lucky numbers 5-18-01-43-00-25 which consequently won in the 1st category, you have therefore been approved for alump sum payout of €1,000,000.00 (One Million Euros)

CONGRATULATIONS!!!
Due to the mix up of some numbers and names we ask that you keep your winning information confidential until your claims has been processed and your money Remitted to you. This is part of our security protocol to avoid double claiming and unwarranted abuse of this program by some participants.

All participants were selected through a computer ballot system drawn from over 30,000 company and 40,000,000 individual email addresses and names from all over the world. This promotional program takes place every three years.

This lottery was promoted by the software corporation to compensate some few individuals with website and email addresses, we hope that with part of your winning you will take part in our next year EUROPE 60 million international lottery. To file for your claim, please contact our EUROPEAN FIDUCIAL AGENT: MR.MARTINS ALBERTO of EUROBOTES LOTERIA AGENCIA S.A
TEL: 0034-618-157-904
Email:eurobotes@netscape.net.
Remember, all winning must be claimed not later than 26th of February
2005. After this date all unclaimed funds will be included in the next
stake.

Please note in order to avoid unnecessary delays and complications please remember to quote your reference number and batch numbers in all correspondence. Furthermore, should there be any change of address do inform our agent as soon as possible. Congratulations once more from our members and staff,we thank you for being part of our promotional program.
Note: Anybody under the age of 18 is automatically disqualified.

Sincerely yours,
Mrs. Anne Jose.
(Lottery Coordinator)

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This scam actually looks totally new. I’ve searched all the ordinary sources, both for the name Kwezi Sibeko, the Projects & Planning departement, as well as The Department of Minerals & Energy, but can see no other instance of this fraudulent email. Still I’m positive that it is a scam.

—
Update: 1/16 2005:Kwezi Sibeko did not like the fact that I published his mail. See www.lindqvist.com/iscams/index.php?ID=1841
—

The discaimer in the footer is a nice touch I think. How can I valuate the mail if I’m not even allowed to read it through? [kursiv:”Please notify the sender immediately if it has unintentionally reached
you and do not read, disclose or use the content in any way.”] Well sorry, if you send a bait to me like this I will swallow, and my way of treating a scam is to publish it.

Enjoy:

From: brad57@sympatico.ca
Subject: Mail dated 14.01.05
Date: Jan 15, 2005 09.52.04 MET
To: [two of my more widely known addresses]
Reply to: kwezi@mail2world.com

Date: Fri, 14 Jan. 2005 06:00
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-mailer: 128 encryption secure e-mailer (DME/90162-3381)
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 128bit

Good Morning,
Kindly pardon the use of a medium as informal as this for reaching out to you to make a request of great importance to us.
My name is Kwezi Sibeko and I work as a Director of Projects & Implementation with The Department of Minerals & Energy here in Pretoria.
My colleagues and I would like to request that you assist us in re-profiling funds valued at Twenty-Two Million, Five Hundred Thousand U. S Dollars which we want kept safely overseas under your supervision. In other words, we would like you to receive the said funds on our behalf.
The Funds were derived over time from a project awarded a foreign firm
by my Department and presently the actual contract cost have been paid to the original project executors, leaving the balance in the tune of the said amount which we have in principle obtained approval to remit overseas.
I have the authority and approval of my partners involved in this transaction to negotiate a suitable compensation for your participation and I propose 22.2 percent, while we also propose that we receive 46.6 percent and 31.2 percent be earmarked for purposes of taxation. This Endeavour has a minimal risk factor on your part provided you treat it with the utmost discretion.
I am available on Tel:(International Dialing Code)+87 476 359 3635 or by fax: (International Dialing Code)+87 476 359 3636 to discuss further with you.

Yours Sincerely,

Kwezi Sibeko
***********************************************************
This e-mail and any attachments are privileged and may contain confidential information intended for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure of this information is prohibited under applicable law.
The person addressed in the e-mail is the sole authorized recipient. Please notify the sender immediately if it has unintentionally reached you and do not read, disclose or use the content in any way.

I do love the standard mail disclaimer at the bottom of Sibeko’s mail.

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It’s clear that iScammers steal from eachother, implementing ideas that seem to work, just as scammers outside the internet always have done. However, on the web this isn’t such a great idea. After winning five different million Euro lotteries in just a week, people might start to read these winning notifications a bit more carefully.

Then again, there are still new Internet users getting online, and perhaps there are still enough newbies for these iScams to actually pay off.

Here’s the most recent winning notification frome an organization calling themselves Euro Millions Lottery International. The idea that Bill Gates would sponsor a lottery like this is quite entertaining, and that’s the reason it is published here. Read the rest of this entry »

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01/11 2005 - I have been exceptionally lucky the last week. This is, I think, the fifth lottery that i won!

I don’t actually publish all lottery scam mails i receive, but the more obviously bogus ones goes up here at once. So, even if the mail below was legitimate, why would they send it to a mailing list instead of just to me? Don’t you think an organisation handling this kind of sums could afford a domain of their own, and not just use spammy sub domains and open email accounts? And the very best… At the bottom of the mail. U.K National Lottery will keep 70% of your winnings! As if there ever where any… Read the rest of this entry »

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An new year, and the post christmas season is, as always, a time when a load of new people come online. Fresh meat for Internet scammers - iScammers. Here’s a totally bogus proposition from a “Dr Dansuki Dan”, who tries to scam us into thinking that there is an easy way to earn a substansial amount of money. How much is quite unclear. The mail sais 38.5 M US$, and mistakes it for “thirty eight five hundred thousand” dollars…

All caps, really bad English, and lots of titles. Yes! It’s a true Nigerian 419 scam letter! Read the rest of this entry »

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This Nigerian 419, from “Samuel Dakoru” has been around at least since early December, when it was published at 419legal.org, but since it is still in cirkulation I’d like to publish it here as well. Nota bene, I didn’t receive this one myself, and will therefore not disclose the originating email address. This mail was forwarded to me from Hungary.

The various spellings of the title Controller (”comptroller”, “comtroller”) is, I think, the highligt if this scam mail. I’m not a great spell checker myself, but I can spell my own title, at least most of the time. Read the rest of this entry »

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Oh what a beauty! What a gem in the world of 419 scam mails this is. It’s supposedly from Nigeria, I’m supposed to help a shady chairman of some governmental committee to move 18 million dollars and I’m to receive a total of 40% of all that as a fee for opening my bank account for this transaction. And it is, of course, nothing but a redhanded old school Nigerian 419 scam.

Just imagine working for an organization named Senate committee on Pension, insurance and manpower development in the National Assembly of the Federal Republic Of Nigeria! Imagine the size of that business card… Read the rest of this entry »

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