In 2005 Spanish Police arrested 310 people, mostly Nigerians, operating a scam operating out of Málaga., Southern Spain.
The group was linked to the Nigerian Mafia and sent millions of spam emails around the world claiming falsly that the recipients had won the Spanish Lottery, usually the big Christmas Lottery on 22nd December. Often they put the date as 23rd of December so any Spanish resident would know that it was a scam. 800 people worldwide are known to have fallen victim to this scam, but it is well known that only a very small number of people report to being victims of a scam out of embarassment, a point on which scammers rely on. The victims were asked to send an adminstrative fee to the scammer allegedly to collect the winnings! Often there were more than one request for this fee so the scammer could squeeze more out of their victim.
The hearing in Málaga Court is due to start in November 2011 but only 74 of the 162 defendants have been located. Arrest warrants for the missing defendants have now been issued.
Since we started publishing many types of scams, including those from the Nigerians the amount that we receive in our inbox has diminished to a trickle, even more so since we included this advice.
If you are from Britain please forward details of the scam to The National Fraud Authority (NFA)
Wouldn´t it be nice if we could live in a scam free world :=)
Wouldn´t it be nice if we could live in a scam free world :=)
