Ahmedabad, November 27: Millions to be inherited from an heirless Nigerian family who died in an expressway accident? Bank of Nigeria will transfer $26.5 billion in fixed deposits of a dead oil magnate in your name if you pay Rs 10,000 to his account manager?

You don’t have to be a Manubhai Shah not to smell a rat when such mails land in your inbox. Just punch ‘Nigerian Scam’ on Google before you try your luck. There are over 11 lakh websites warning you to ignore the mails and informing you that it’s a major international scam.

The ‘Nigerian Scam’ also referred to as ‘advance fee fraud’ or 419 fraud— after a formerly relevant section of the Criminal Code of Nigeria— is supposed to be the fifth largest industry in Nigeria. Countries like US, Australia and South Africa in fact issue travel warnings to their citizens to beware of the Nigerian scam. There are over 200 online organisations only fighting 419 frauds. The US has a “Nigerian Advance Fee Fraud Prevention Act of 1998” to deal with this and it is the US Secret Service which tracks these frauds.

The New Delhi Police’s Cyber Cell Crime Branch has also put up a website www.cybercrime.planetindia.net/nigerian—scam, with information about the scam. Also, UK is one of the hardest hit in this scam.

The scam operates this way:
* Originating either from Nigeria or other West African nations, 419 emails often promise you millions of dollars for helping the sender move large sums of money out of their country. The money, the email will say, either belongs to a very rich businessman or a senior government official who has died and has no heirs. The email willz say that if unclaimed, banks would seal the accounts. The polite proposal will be that you would be shown as a distant kin and after paying a ‘small’ fee, that money will be transferred to you.
* If you fall for this, a request for an ‘advance fee’ or a ‘transfer fee’ will follow. It’s usually a nominal amount.
* The email sender often cites the ‘common name’ reason for contacting you as in, your surname may be vaguely similar to the person whose millions you are supposed to inherit. But it is not necessary, the email may land anyway.
* The person who has sent the mail introduces himself as the account manager or advocate of the late owner of the bank account.
* You are encouraged to send cashier cheques to keep transactions smooth.
* But, transfer or advance fee is only the beginning of the scam. In case you fall for the emails and make the initial payment, there will another request: it could be ‘anti-doping fee’ or anti-terrorism fee’ or ‘additional funds’ to take care of minor complications and ‘government clearances’. There would be at least six or seven such requests after which, in case you have heeded all requests and paid up, you will never hear from your contact again.
* If you have made payments, you have been fooled because there are no millions waiting for you in a bank. Your money will never be traced and your contact is a faceless internet fraud who won’t use the same id again. It’s a $500 million worldwide scam and people keep falling for it.

‘Nigeria-the 419 coalition website’(www.http//home.rica.net) is one of the most comprehensive websites warning people about the Nigerian scam. It says that monies stolen by 419 operations are almost never recovered from Nigeria. The Nigerian Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has only one advice: ignore all such mails and solicitations. Still, it has received about 10,000 complaints so far.