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Tracking Down A 419 Scammer
from the it's-about-time dept
There are a ton of folks who, when bored, have decided to mess with 419 Nigerian email scammers. They respond to one of the spams at random, and then either write up an article or an amusing webpage about the experience. That was interesting the first few times, but recently it's had a "been there, done that" feel to it. Now, a woman in Connecticut has gone one step further. Instead of just emailing with one of these scammers, she helped to get one arrested. Good for her. Maybe others will start doing the same thing, and it will help cut down on all those 419 scams. Of course, there are some risks involved, since Nigerian scammers are criminals and have been known to harm or even kill people. So, while it may sound like fun, it's probably not worth doing in all cases.
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To Catch a Courier...
It appears, reading the article, that the courier was arrested and not the scammer (though that is still just based on the limited information in the article.) They'll likely get this guy on an aiding and abetting charge, but they may actually use him to get to the real scammers who hired him to pick up the money.
It is similar to the government arresting the guide and not the smuggler, or the drug courier and not the dealer, but it is a start. Now they just need to work the guy to figure out who the master-mind of the operation was in order to arrest them and shut down the operation. The game isn't over yet, the government has just taken out one of the pawns.
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Techdirt = 419 Atttractor
Mike often mentions how he gets tons of 419 emails. I had never received one until I put my email address on a Techdirt post, and now I have received a couple dozen of these letters. What is the connection? Maybe Mike sells the email addresses to Nigerian scammers?
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Re: Techdirt = 419 Atttractor
Maybe the lesson here is *don't post your email address*. Anytime you post your email address anywhere on the web, it is likely to get scooped up by the spambots that scour the web collecting email addresses which then get sold to spammers.
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Re: Techdirt = 419 Atttractor
Mike sells the email addresses to Nigerian scammers?
Ha! Yeah, I wish. To be honest, I pretty much assume that any email anyone posts here with is completely bogus.
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Re: Techdirt = 419 Atttractor
Is this scam really still widespread? I found some good sites where people really mess with these scammers.
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Re: Techdirt = 419 Atttractor
Yes, it's more active than ever. Found at the easy way =) Answered my own question.
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