Nigerian Bank Fraud

Nigerian Bank Fraud

Nigerian Bank Fraud is one of the most time-tested and proven scams in existence. Hell, check your mailbox; chances are, they’re after you too! But not to worry; there are several easy and not-so-easy steps you can take to assure that you never fall victim to this plague upon society.

What is Nigerian Bank Fraud?

The Nigerian Bank Fraud Scam is commonly referred to by experts as a “4-1-9 Scam,” a term that has a long and curious history. In the early Thirteenth Century (give or take) Marco Polo observed several examples of Chinese ingenuity, such as fireworks, paper, school entrance exams, foot binding, and early hip hop, but what impressed him most was the ease with which they fleeced unsuspecting Austro-Hungarians via a mail scam that they had developed. The Great Khan’s government employed these confidence men and women in the same fashion as the English would employ privateers a couple of centuries later. This government department consisted of exactly four hundred and twenty members, who all reported directly to the Great Khan himself.

Why four hundred and twenty? To the contemporary western mind, the number seems ridiculously large and bloated, but it in fact was quite streamlined for the era. One has to remember that China’s population is larger than that of any other country in the world. Also, during the era in question it was not uncommon to show up at work and find that Ben’s workplace potluck dinner had been cancelled…because his entire family had been claimed by the plague. But that’s another story.
Four hundred and twenty, in addition to being sleek and streamlined and small and secret and sleek, was also a very special number in ancient Chinese/Mongolian lore. The Chinese held two numbers in very high esteem, seven (because it was lucky, and the Great Khan saw it in a fortune cookie) and five (because it was 16.435% of the length of an average month in a non-leap year). In addition, the Chinese appreciated twelve, because it was the sum of those two numbers. When these three divine numbers were multiplied together (multiplication, incidentally, was another one of those products of Chinese ingenuity that so intrigued Marco Polo) the result was…any guesses? Four hundred and twenty!

Despite being given this lesson in rudimentary Chinese math, Mr. Polo still knew very little about the schemers and con men in the employ of the Chinese government, so he decided to do a little investigative journalism (he would later earn a posthumous Pulitzer for his efforts). He contacted a person whom he was pretty sure was a member of this clandestine organization, a lithe, young woman named Lydia, and seduced her with gifts of fine European three-cornered hats, sword hilts, and opium. Through Lydia he learned the inner workings of GSNBF (Government-Sanctioned Nigerian Bank Fraud, not to be confused with GLBTQ), as the organization was called. (The adjective Nigerian was still inexplicably used back then to describe the scheme, despite China’s limited contact with Africa. Some speculate that this was the reason Nigeria is named as it is today.) He learned about how the Chinese had invented typewriters just to make their letters look official; he learned about how the entire group functioned as a decentralized organism, despite no central control it functioned seamlessly and effortlessly; at any one time, no one knew more than two other members of the group, yet things got done. Marco Polo was so awestruck by its beauty that he likened it to a “dew-coated pear on a midsummer morning.” He wed Lydia on July 4, a date that back then had no real significance.

Eventually, however, Lydia was found out by her peers; she was the first, last and only traitor to run through the ranks of GSNBF, and to ensure that such a thing would never happen again, the post that she had occupied (Rank-and-Filer Number 233) would forever be vacated, and to this day only four hundred and nineteen people operate this scam. So why, when Marco Polo brought news of this to Europe, was it referred to as a four-one-nine scam and not a four hundred and nineteen scam? For one simple reason: in this era of European history, the Dark Ages, no one in Europe knew how to count past ten. (The Dark Ages owed their name to the scorched skies brought on by the decree of Pope Urban VIII to drain hope from the heathens and moneylenders).

Today the scam operates chiefly out of African countries, its original form in China long having been replaced by other sources of revenue, namely the manufacturing of cheap plastic toys. To date, not a single perpetrator has been caught, and top-flight intelligence agencies around the world (even really good ones like the ones from Mr. and Mrs. Smith) have given up the chase and focused on easier, tamer matters (terrorism, serial murderers, adulterous soccer moms, deadbeats, drifters, the proliferation of Bollywood films outside of their homeland, scientology). There have been numerous reports of sightings and a few who claim to have shackled this most elusive breed of confidence man, but the one disturbing detail that stands out in these reports is that when the Samaritan looked away, even for an instant, the con man disappeared.

I Don’t Want to be Conned!

And you don’t have to be! A tempting measure to avoid being conned is to shred the letter as soon as receiving it, but this is a bad idea. These men strongly dislike being found out, and will come after you with a vengeance if you cross them. When they come after you a second time, you won’t be able to prevent yourself from falling victim to their lures and depositing several thousand dollars in a bank account located in Mauritius. You will even follow through with a thank-you letter to them for providing you with the opportunity, and a gift of Whitman’s Finest Chocolate Sampler, something you were planning on giving to your one and only on Valentine’s Day. No, shredding the document is not the way to go.

A more sophisticated but still mistaken route might be to hire a professional mail screener. These men know when real people are reading their letters, and when mere mail screeners are reading their letters. They will come after you particularly vengefully in this case, and you will be the beneficiary of several letter bombs, unusually high volumes of junk mail, unwanted (and often diseased) animals, Hepatitis-C-covered contact lenses, and even unclaimed copies of Battlefield Earth DVDs all in a conniving attempt to make your life a living hell. And it will work, because your life will become a living hell. Even if these items only pass into the possession of your mail-screener and not you personally, you’ll have a hell of a lot of workman’s comp to pay.

No; the correct response to Nigerian Bank Fraud is to beat them at their own game. No, not Parcheesi, but trickery and deceit. Think like a con man; dress, walk, talk, and eat like a con man; and you can beat a con man. Respond to the message how they expect you to; set up an offshore account in Mauritius, and play along; deposit your life savings, or at least a few thousand dollars (remember the confidence man’s maxim: You must lose a little to gain a lot) as a token sacrifice. Comfort yourself with the notion that those few thousand dollars you lost would by now have depreciated to fewer thousand dollars due to inflation, and you probably would have blown it all on cleaning supplies or at Good Vibrations anyways. After remaining idle for a few months, you must respond to the message in writing. Tell them how much you enjoyed doing business with them, and how you would love to participate in any future endeavors they have planned. It may pain you to lie so blatantly like this; but you must grit your teeth and bear it, for conning is not a trade for an honest man. Continue this cycle of depositing a few thousand dollars every few months; in a couple of years you will have gained the trickster’s gratitude and confidence. Yes, confidence; just as macadamia nuts make splendid cookies and rainbow sprinkles make terrific ice cream, confidence is the key ingredient to any con.

Now you change the rules of the game. Tell them you would like to visit them to discuss possibilities of larger future payments. “No self-serving criminal who is worth a damn would pass up on such an opportunity,” the trickster will say aloud to himself (perhaps in some local dialect, or perhaps in grammatically precise, British-accented English) and then agree to the visit despite whatever misgivings he has about you changing the rules of the game. You arrange the meeting place for a darkened corner of an airport, so that if things get dicey, you are still in a relatively crowded area where you can jump out at anytime. If things do not get dicey, then you are in a darkened area where no one can see you.

At the meeting, the conversation should go something like this:

YOU: It is an honor to make your acquaintance.

BANTU YOUTH (by the looks of it): Nay, the honor is mine.

YOU: In this suitcase (motion towards your suitcase) I have the sum of one million dollars in cash.

BY: Splendid.

YOU: It is yours to keep, but under one condition.

BY: Enlighten me, just as you must have enlightened thousands before me.

YOU: You must refrain from opening this suitcase until you are in your house, and then do so with all of your business partners gathered around closely, so they can know of your windfall.

BY: I will complete your directions as if it were a matter of life (dramatic pause)…and death.

Little does our Bantu Youth know that it is, in fact, a matter of life and death. As he leaves, find two local hit men (as abundant at these Nigerian airports as porters) and give them specific instructions to kill BY if he wavers from your directions in the slightest. Make sure BY sees you conversing with these gentlemen. Pay them ten dollars each (a month’s wages) and send them on the most important mission of their lives.

If Bantu Youth wavers from your directions, it is easy to see how he will end up. But what if he follows your instructions “to a T,” so to speak? Then the two pounds of plastic explosive you packed inside will explode in his and his associates’ faces as soon as the suitcase is opened. Now feel the elation and relief flow over your body; a man has not felt the sensation that you now feel since Marco Polo graced this world.

Congratulations, you are the first person in eight centuries to catch one of these elusive men, dead or alive! Next stop: bin Laden!