I Was A Nigerian Email Scammer…
from the confession-time dept
There have been a bunch of articles on Techdirt recently about the Nigerian 419 email scam, designed to trick greedy people out of their money. A few months ago we had some detailed articles on how the scam works. Today, Wired has an interview with a former email scammer who explains how the con works. What he says pretty much agrees with the description from a few months ago. It’s a fairly large operation, that is run like a business, with many different people playing different roles. This guy’s job was just to write the letters. The scam, it seems, was part of his family’s business. Most of the people involved don’t see anything wrong with what they’re doing, since they’re scamming greedy people. The only major difference between the way he describes the plan, and the original article is that this group says the most important thing is convincing the victim to come to Nigeria. They help get them into the country illegally, and then will do anything they can to rob them blind.
