Nigerian 419 Scammers Feed on Greed, Gullibility
Stephanie Nolen writes in The Globe and Mail:
In a steamy Lagos Internet café, thumping with the bass beat of Nigerian rock videos on a TV overhead, barrister Olayinka Okwudili sits writing an urgent e-mail about his financial crisis.
If you believe the letter, he's a prominent Lagos barrister who needs to move some money. It is possible, however, that this young man in artfully distressed jeans and a T-shirt is not, in fact, a barrister, but he is distinctly unwilling to discuss the matter.
Similar young men, alone or in pairs, are at many of the computers around him in a middle-class residential neighbourhood of Africa's busiest city, some of whom can be overheard discussing the exact turn of phrase they need for their letters, which seek "dear friends" in "far off lands" to help them with the "very urgent matter of $10-million" tragically left in the account of their "very dear late father."
posted by Fergie @ 12/05/2005 07:40:00 AM
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