The text quoted above is an example of Advance Fee Fraud (AFF) or, as it has become known internationally, the "419" scam, the number being the section of the Nigerian criminal code having to do with financial fraud schemes. You can find it listed at the U.S. Secret Service home page, which offers reliable information about the scam, in addition to addresses and phone numbers where people can report this or any other such scam offers they receive.

The Nigerian business letter has been around in snail mail, fax and email form for over ten years, and it's been reported that up to 100 million dollars annually are swindled from folks who are taken in by it. The letter itself comes in numerous variations; sometimes with the Nigerian official's name changed and sometimes even purporting to have been sent from the Congo or other countries near Nigeria. Often the letter is all in caps, and generally will include awful grammar and misspelled words.

If a person engages in communication with these folks and seems willing to conduct the transactions of which they speak (and some people they have actually flown to Nigeria and ultimately held hostage and otherwise harmed) at the last moment will begin the innocent-sounding requests for payment of an unforeseen fee, usually a couple thousand dollars but sometimes quite a bit more. Once that is paid and the victim is now 'invested' in the matter, the requests or, by this point, demands for further payments continue, to ruinous effect. It's very serious "business."

So be careful, everybody. And don't trust unverifiable information in your inboxes!

- Article by Wale Bello