Three Plead Guilty In Nigerian Advance Fee Fraud

Sometimes, spamming scammers are brought to justice: Two Nigerian nationals and a Senegalese national, each with a variety of aliases, pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy, mail fraud and multiple charges of wire fraud last Wednesday before US Magistrate Judge Roland Reyes Jr. in Brooklyn. Each wire and mail fraud count carries a maximum 20 year sentence; the conspiracy charges each carry a 5 year maximum sentence. The case was originally investigated by Dutch authorities; the three were arrested in Amsterdam in 2006 and extradited. A fourth defendant fled to Nigeria and is being held pending extradition.

The charges arose from an advance fee fraud scheme (419 scam) operated by the defendants: the all-too-familiar spam emails in which the writer claims to control millions of dollars overseas and the recipient is offered a commission for his help in gaining control of the funds; one of the scenarios in this case involved a throat cancer sufferer who wished to distribute $55 million to charity. The suckers victims in these schemes lost approximately $1.2 million in wire transfer payments to the defendants for advance fees. The DOJ Press release is here.