Scam-Detective: We spoke last week about your involvement with advance fee fraud scams and “phishing” emails. You told me that you were recruited into a gang at the age of 15 and were convicted of fraud a little over 2 years ago, serving 2 years in prison for your crimes. You also told me that you are now working with the Nigerian authorities to bring other scammers to justice, whilst trying to educate yourself by doing a business studies course at college.
John: That’s right. I’m trying to make things right with God and my family.
Scam-Detective: A reader has asked me to talk to you about face to face scams. Were you ever involved in meeting a victim, or was all of your contact by email?
John: I never met a victim, but I was involved in a couple of Wash-Wash scams.
Scam-Detective: Wash Wash scams? What does that involve?
John: We would tell the victim that we had a trunk full of money, millions of dollars. One victim met some of my associates in a hotel in Amsterdam, where he was shown a box full of black paper. He was told that the money had been dyed black to get through customs, and that it could be cleaned with a special chemical that was very expensive. My associates showed him how this worked with a couple of $100 bills from the top of the box, which they rinsed with some liquid to remove the black dye. Of course the rest of the bills were only black paper, but the victim saw real money. He handed over $27,000 (about £17,000) to buy the chemicals and was told to return to the hotel later that day to pick up the cash. Of course when he came back, there was nobody there. He couldn’t report it to anybody because if it had been real it would have been illegal, so he would have gotten himself into trouble.
Scam-Detective: Ok, I also want to talk more about how you managed to get your victims to trust you. I know it can be difficult for legitimate businesses to persuade customers to buy their products, yet you were able to convince people to part with their cash to get their hands on money that never existed in the first place, with at least one taking an international flight on top. That’s quite a skill, how did you learn to do it?
John: Once I had spent some time as a “foot soldier” (* sending out initial approaches and passing serious victims to other scammers) I was promoted to act as either a barrister, shipping agent or bank official. In the early days I had a supervisor who would read my emails and suggest responses, then I was left to do it myself. I had lots of different documents that I would use to convince the victim that I was genuine, including photographs of an official looking man in an office, fake ID and storage manifests, bank statements showing the money, whatever would best convince the victim that I, and the money, was real. I think the English term is to “worm my way” into their trust, taking it slowly and carefully so I didn’t scare them away by asking for too much money too soon.
Scam-Detective: What would you do if a victim had sent money and couldn’t afford to send more, or got cold feet?
John: I would use whatever tactics were needed to get more money. I would send faked letters which stated that the money was about to be taken out of the account by the bank or seized by the government to make them think it was urgent, or tell them that this was definitely the last obstacle to the money being released. I would encourage them to take out loans or borrow money from friends to make the last payment, but tell them that it was important that they didn’t tell anyone what the money was for. I promised them that the expenses would be paid back on top of their share of the money.
Scam-Detective: So you basically didn’t care where the money came from, or what they had to do to get it, as long as they got it?
John: Some of the blame has to go to the victims. They wanted the money too because they were greedy. Lots of times I would get emails telling me that they wanted more money than I was offering because of the money they were having to send. They could afford to lose the money.
Scam-Detective: John, I think you have been basically honest with me so far. Please don’t stop that now. You know as well as I do that not all of your victims were motivated by greed. I have seen plenty of scam emails that talk about dying widows who want to give their money to charity, or young people who are in refugee camps and need help to get out. You targetted vulnerable, charitable people as well as greedy businessmen, didn’t you? You didn’t care whether they could afford it or not, did you?
John: Ok, you are right. I am not proud of it but I had to feed my family.
Scam-Detective: And fund your BMW, mobile phones and laptops, let’s not forget about that. When the victim had run out of money and couldn’t send any more, was that the end of it? Or did you go back later for more?
John: We had something called the recovery approach. A few months after the original scam, we would approach the victim again, this time pretending to be from the FBI, or the Nigerian Authorities. The email would tell the victim that we had caught a scammer and had found all of the details of the original scam, and that the money could be recovered. Of course there would be fees involved as well. Victims would often pay up again to try and get their money back.
Scam-Detective: So when the victim had had some time to get over the fact that you had wormed your way into their lives, gained their trust and ripped them off, you went back for another bite of the cherry? The more I speak to you John, the less I like you.
John: I know, I know. Don’t be angry with me. I’m not proud of what I have done and I am very sorry for everyone who sent money. If I could give it back I would.
Scam-Detectives: But only if they sent you $1000 by Wire Transfer first? Ignore that. Tell me more about corruption in Nigeria. Did you pay bribes to officials and wire transfer office staff to make things easier?
John: I can’t tell you about that, I have to be careful. I can tell you that lots of people make money from scams in Nigeria, and not all of them are scammers. Everyone has their cut.
