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The 419 advance fee fraud
Like the Western Union 'receipt deceit' we looked at in our film, it relies on trust in your fellow human beings. And of all the scams in all the clip joints in all the world - millions have walked into this one. The crooks keep doing it because the scam keeps working. Yes folks, it's the 419 advance fee fraud.

'419' is the key clause on the Nigerian criminal code which wags its big fat but utterly useless legal finger at the thousands of home-grown practitioners. It's futile. These internet scammers are 'virtually' untouchable by the domestic jurisdictions of those who fall hapless prey to their seductions. In its ferocious simplicity, the 419 is like a parasite leeching on our hopes, dreams, optimism and belief in the essential goodness of our fellow beings. You could also say it ruthlessly exploits our naivety and greed. You might then add, all that very much amounts to the same thing. And let's throw in 'there but for the grace of God go I', shall we?

A financial windfall from nowhere?
Unlike the 'sham flat scam' it tickles your financial G spot. It strikes a chord that resonates deep in our fantasy worlds. Far away people from far off places with far too much money and a far fetched scheme to give us some of it. So far so good. A financial windfall from nowhere? Pennies from heaven? You may laugh, but nothing better illustrates a shining but easily forgotten Watchdog principle. If something is too good to be true - it is.

You know the deal. Here's one:

HELLO FRIEND,
I KNOW THIS MAY COME AS A SURPRISE TO YOU, BUT THE MAIN ISSUE IS THAT I NEED YOUR TRUST TO CARRY OUT THIS TARGET OF MINE.

I'M MR KELVIN MARKSON LIBERIA A GOVERNMENT WORKER IN THE MINISTRY. I WASA GOOD AND A HONEST MAN TO A COMMISSIONER WHOM I HELPED MANAGE A SECRET
ACCOUNT IN (UNION BANK PLC) IN WEST AFRICA, BUT NOW HE IS DEAD AND NOBODY KNOWS ABOUT OUR SECRET.

SO MY MAIN AIM IS TO INVEST THE FUND IN YOUR COUNTRY WHICH 30 PER CENT WILL BE YOUR SHARE AS COMPENSATION SO THAT I WILL TELL YOU WHAT NEXT TO DO IN THE REPLY I WILL GET FROM YOU.

REMEMBER THIS, ALL I NEED IS YOUR TRUST AND HONESTY SO THAT THIS CAN BE CARRIED OUT SUCCESSFULLY AND URGENT SO THAT I CAN GET OUT OF THIS
COUNTRY BECAUSE RIGHT NOW, I'M INDOORS FOR SECURITY REASON.

Sounds like a capital chap. One reply and you can get yourself a leg up into a spider's web of seduction, conviction, addiction and desperation. 'Only for gullible stupid people', I hear you cry. I wonder.

There's a fascinating case reported in the New Yorker magazine recently telling the painful saga of a Massachusetts psychotherapist, John W Worley. Worley, a Vietnam veteran and ordained Minister, got suckered for as much as $80,000 after an all too familiar tale unfolded. This was a man who as the New Yorker puts it - 'spent his life advocating self-knowledge and introspection'. Doctor heel thyself! He got so caught up in it, he ended behaving as irrationally as a compulsive gambler chasing a losing streak. John Worley got so trapped he ended up doing time in a Federal prison. The promises and yet more promises had dragged him down into a ghastly abyss of forged and stolen cheques. 'Just a few thousand dollars more is all we need to bribe one more official and then the transfer can at last go ahead'.

All this after one initial email from Captain Joshua Mbote, relying on his correspondent's trustworthiness and reliability, had sought assistance in transferring money from South Africa into the US. And, what better country to love bomb with these emails than the Land of Opportunity? It's the fast tracked American dream.

Under-reported crimes
The key to why these crimes are so under-reported is down to the sheer embarrassment. The excruciating shame folk feel when it dawns on them that they have been kebabed. Like a bad relationship and bad seafood you look back in disbelief. How could I have?

Once the felons get their talons into the 'Marks', as the victims are called, they don't let go of you. And once any kind of emotional bond is established it all becomes creepily credible. That boundary between fantasy and reality blurs and you're putty in their hands. One party grows hopelessly reliant on the other and irrationally expects that some day soon everything is going to turn out right. Wrong!

It works far too often because there's a pretty thin line between fantasy and reality in all of us. I checked it out with the psychologist Oliver James. Who could be had?

"People totally resistant to this type of scam would be those who had a completely stable childhood - and are well balanced, reality tested and not given to pigs flying, which in all honesty is only about 30 per cent of the population," said Dr James.

He then helpfully added: "The rest are sadly prone to wishful thinking or fantastical thinking."

So if Oliver is right we have the answer to the question as to who might be vulnerable. Most of us.

Meanwhile the internet does give it all a kind of spurious credibility. It fires the imagination and the imagination forms an unholy alliance of wishful thinking with the heart, which then pulls rank on the head and the die is cast. You're up that ol' creek and some schmuck has got details of your account, and then worse than that - lot's of its contents.

The Spanish Lottery scam
It clearly works a treat because it's a massive business. The Spanish Lottery scam alone, which we've also covered on Watchdog, uses conventional mail outs as well as emails. They post between 30 and 50 thousand letters a day costing about a Euro each and there are upwards of a thousand people, mostly Nigerians, making a living from it in Spain alone.

Mike Haley from the Office of Fair Trading is the country's Scambuster in Chief. I asked him why people fell for something that to many of us seems such a blatant lie. He said: "Well it is very seductive, they tug on different heart strings and it depends what time it catches you, what is going on in your life. And remember, there are so many millions sent out, and people are coming on line new to the internet and are not yet too savvy about it."

John Simpson, the outstanding ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ journalist, received one of those Spanish Lottery faxes back in 1989. Remember faxes? The technology changes - the scam remains the same. John records in his recent autobiography that even he had a passing glimmer of a flicker of a thought that it might be genuine. He writes disarmingly: "I needed the money, of course. One always seems to."

Ain't that the truth. Even John Simpson, a man who has sat eyeball to eyeball with and scrutinised some of the biggest villains on the planet had a little 'moment'. It didn't last long admittedly, before he sneered, scoffed and sped off to Lagos to string along the scammers and their bogus £494,000 winnings, but there's some solace there for the rest of us; those of us in Oliver James '70 per cent' club. What needs to be going on in your life for John's little glimmer of a flicker to become a destructive flame burning serious holes in your pockets? What needs to light your fire? The desire to help not just yourself maybe, but someone else?

Polly Toynbee. There's a sharp cookie. The Guardian journalist and Grand Dame of the liberal left got scammed by post. This wasn't the 419 but it worked a treat with Polly. A little girl called Sandra, both of whose parents had apparently died of the Ebola flesh-eating illness, needed a couple of hundred quid to enable her to finish her promising but sadly curtailed studies. The strings of Polly's admirably bleeding heart were plucked like a turkey and off went the cheque. Polly felt even more like a turkey when she found that her bank had been receiving letters with her 'bootifully' forged signature asking for money to be transferred to an account in Japan.

The 'Yahoo boys'
Back in Lagos they're called the 'Yahoo boys'. That's generally where they set up their false and temporary accounts. A lot of them know each other, hang around internet cafes and are often just small cogs in pretty big criminal wheels. Some are sole traders. For all too many people there, it is a way of life. A real industry. As to the question I posed at the beginning - why Nigeria? Well let me quote from John Simpson's excellent book again: "Nigeria is a wonderful country and my heart lifts every time I go there. It's full of life and enjoyment and noise and bustle. It is also full of crooks."

Nigeria has all the ingredients for this sort of racket to take root. It's English speaking, there's relative poverty, a reasonable standard of education, wide access to the internet and also a prevalent view among the criminals that do this that rich Westerners are fair game.

The whole culture of the 419 has been justified and glorified in song by one Nkem Owoh. Check it out on YouTube. The song is called 'I Go Chop Your Dollar'.