AMERICAN FOCUS PUBLISHING/UII

                                                            Post Office Box 663

                                                 South Plainfield, NJ 07080-0663

                                                     Email: amerfocus@aol.com

NEW CD SERIES AND BOOK ADDRESSES NIGERIAN "419" SCAM PREVENTION BEFORE "YOU" BECOME A VICTIM

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

South Plainfield, New Jersey: You have just logged on to your Internet provider and youve received an unsolicited Letter or Email titled: Urgent Business Proposal!  Someone wants to deposit more than TEN MILLION DOLLARS into your bank account, but needs your telephone number, a fax number and your banks routing number and your checking account number.

And before the transaction and your 25% commission, youll have to fly to an international location for a face-to-face meeting!

Your first instinct on receiving an unsolicited message like this from someone you have never heard of, promising large amounts of money in exchange for a little "assistance" on your part might be to immediately delete it from your computer, or destroy the letter if it arrives by regular postal mail.

But Brian Wizard, while clearly recognizing such messages for the frauds that they are, decided to pursue the matter as a research project. The result of the project is now a book and an informational 3-CD set exposing the devious schemes in detail, titled "NIGERIAN 419 SCAM: GAME OVER!"

The 419 scams started out in the 1980s and primarily targeted the United States and Western Europe. Nowadays, they are shifting their target to new, far less affected locations such as Central-Eastern Europe and Asia, while targeting individuals, small businesses, large corporations, churches and non-profit organizations.  These scamsters are abusing the basic personal and human weaknesses of greed and gullibility. To these fraudsters, it is very easy to target their victims, who, in the end, lose personal and corporate funds, human relationships, their freedom, and sometimes their lives.

The term, "419" comes from the section of the Nigerian Penal Code outlawing fraudulent criminal activities, though not all 419 scams originate in Nigeria. According to modest estimates, in excess of $5.5 billion has been stolen from corporations, small businesses and from individual victims, worldwide, by 419 criminals. And still, there are more and more individuals, small businesses and large corporations being scammed every single day.

Despite several years of warnings, prospective victims are not is short supply, even in sophisticated societies. Numerous 419 scam emails and letters arrive in Americas mailboxes and computers each day and, although the approaches are somewhat different, the age-old scam is the same and awaits its next willing victims response and involvement.

Today, most computer users who routinely receive emails from strangers generally delete them without reading their contents. However, when they receive a message or letter from the widow of a recently deceased or assassinated dictator, they compassionately start to take notice.  Regardless of the amount offered and the reason provided, all scam operators follow the same pattern for fooling and deceiving unsuspecting victims.  The white-collar criminals claim that they have supervision over large funds, which are currently held for various reasons.  In order to collect the sums, the 419 recipient is expected to pay a small and sum and, usually later, a larger contribution which, as the fraudsters explain, is needed to put the transaction on track. Often, the 419 operators claim that the money is needed to open an account to release the funds, or to bribe local decision-makers, adding that the swindlers will then be ready to provide them with untold amounts of false, but seemingly authentic looking documents about the existence of the money, one of the key ploys in the short lifespan of the scheme.

One of the existing scam scenarios is a modernized version of a centuries-old West African con called the "Red Mercury Scam", in which it is claimed that a special chemical is needed to clean the bank notes that have been purposely defaced in order to make them unusable.  The trick is that the bad guys are in need of cash to seemingly get new chemical supplies so that they can get the money cleaned and transferred.

In other scenarios, targeted victims are told that foreign entities bequeathed them large amounts of money, or that they have the authority to transfer the exchange value of large contracts, or even have government funds to take out of the country. In some cases, they specifically target churches and religious organizations by claiming that they represent a church whose funds are in danger, and that help is needed to get money out of the country.

Based on vast research into the nature of the Nigerian 419 scam industry, initial emails are sent from any one of the many free Internet email service accounts. The message may claim that the recipient's name was found through a respectable source, such as a local chamber of commerce directory. The message typically claims that a large sum of money, normally over $10 million, is not accessible for a variety of reasons, and that the recipient's help is requested to unlock the funds, for which a substantial commission, typically 25%, is promised and will be deposited into the recipient's bank account.

The usual messages frequently state that 5% of the funds will be used to pay transaction costs and that the sender usually guarantees that the transaction is "risk free". The 419 recipient is asked to treat the matter as "strictly confidential."

While many repeatedly targeted recipients recognize the Nigerian 419 scam for what it really is, a scam, and know that their initial contributions will be hopelessly lost, deleting the email or destroying the written correspondence usually ends of the incident. However, the really greedy and gullible 419 scam targets go as far as traveling to Africa, meeting with the fraudsters, and end up paying more fees, or take the risk of being kidnapped and held for ransom or even killed.

"Brian" traveled and paid money to the 419 scamsters, but for a different reason. He had received an initial Urgent Business Proposal email in the Fall of 1999 and decided to personally research the issue by pretending that he was a willing participant for the 419 scam. He was willing to sacrifice both time and money to get as much information as possible. Driven by his instincts, "Brian" soon contacted four different Nigerian fraudster groups, which operated independently from each other with the same inherent goal.

After communicating with various people by email, fax and telephone in Nigeria, Spain and London, "Brian" traveled overseas to personally meet with the swindlers in early 2000.  He met with 419 operatives from two different groups in London and in Amsterdam, both of whom demanded hefty sums of money and gifts from him.

The London group needed money for "special chemicals", while the Amsterdam group requested that "Brian" join the exclusive "Secret Bank" at a cost of $75,000, before the untold millions of dollars would be transferred. During the Amsterdam encounter, "Brian" overheard a telephone conversation between one of the criminals and a previous victim, who, after having paid the secret bank admission fee, could not understand why the bank transfer to her American bank account was delayed indefinitely.

Finally leaving Amsterdam with a full scope and understanding about the dynamics of the Nigerian 419 Scam, which encompassed all of the email communications, the overseas telephone calls, numerous faxed documents, the overseas trips, transportation and accommodations, all of which cost him about $4,000, "Brian", a Vietnam combat veteran, realized that these modern-day criminals had already provided most of the ingredients for the creation of his book, "NIGERIAN 419 SCAM: GAME OVER! and the three CD set of the same title.

It is important to note that victims of any 419 scams should not expect or count on much or any assistance from the embassies or authorities, either locally or on the African continent.  Even if a complaint is filed, there is little chance that any lost or stolen funds will be recovered. If a victim considers telling criminal justice authorities, "I was helping foreign entities to carry out an international money laundering scheme, when I found out that it was a scam and they fooled and deceived me", does not sound like a promising defense when filing a local, state or federal crime complaint as a victim.

In order to prevent being scammed, it is important to become informed and then make your own informed decisions. Education is the ultimate weapon against scams, schemes, cons, frauds and swindles, including crimes perpetrated by Nigerian or other 419 scam operatives. While the most important tactic against becoming or being a victim of scams is not responding to these outlandish 419 invitations offering something for seemingly nothing, those persons targeted by mail or electronically, should use their common sense and not put themselves, their companies or their employers in the position of becoming victims, such as responding to emails with subject headings reading "Urgent Business Proposal" or committing personal or corporate funds  Your first question should be, "Why Me?" and then you should remember that is something seems too good to be true, it probably is!

A Michigan woman received a request via e-mail from someone, identifying himself as a Nigerian, to help him recover $180 million. All she had to do was set up a bank account in the United States, and she was required to help pay some of the international bribes and fees.  So, pay she did, with her own personal funds and other money from a source for which she had direct access.

Now, she is accused of embezzling more than $2 million dollars from her employer between February and August of 2002 to finance the scheme. In all honesty, according to the woman, she planned to pay it all back when she received her promised $20.5 million commission from her Nigerian business partner. Of course, she never got a cent. She had

simply fallen victim to one of the most common scams on the Internet, THE NIGERIAN 419 SCAM. Now, she's been indicted on 13 counts of wire fraud.

To learn more about these scams and how you can protect yourself from becoming a victim, losing personal cash, facing possible incarceration, being kidnapped for ransom or run the risk of being killed, long before you NEVER become very wealthy through the scam or receive the first penny of your promised commission, order the 3-CD Set, NIGERIAN 419 SCAM: GAME OVER! which includes the written version of the original book.

Both the 3-CD set and the book are immediately available from American Focus Publishing/UII  Post Office Box 663  South Plainfield, NJ 07080-0663  Email: amerfocus@aol.com, to spread this important information and the warning to small businesses, major corporations, churches, non-profit organizations, individuals, law enforcement, corrections and security professionals and anyone who may not yet realize the great personal and financial losses that can result from getting involved in Nigerian 419 Scams.

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