Posted by Jane Okinedo on March 30, 2010 at 4:05am
Fraudsters relocating from Nigeria -ReportAgency reporterFraudsters are beginning to move out of Nigeria to neighbouring countries in the region, according to a report by PCworld, an international news web site about technology based in the United States and United Kingdom.This is just as an Australian-based woman is receiving back part of the money she lost to con-men, Empowered Newswire reports.Besides, a 2009 report from the Internet Crime Complaint Centre, disclosed that although internet scams are common in Africa, countries on the continent made up only 10 per cent of the reported number of complaints, with the US and UK comprising more than 75 per cent of the total.In its report, PCworld, released a report quoting an internet security expert, Steve Santorelli, as saying that con-men were relocating from Nigeria.Santorelli, who is the director of Global Outreach, said that while it was generally perceived that the 419 scams originated in Nigeria, there is now "a growing perception that the miscreants involved have now started relocating to neighbouring countries." Santorelli is the director of Global Outreach, an internet security research firm.PCworld also reported that "greed and the desire to make quick money have been given as major reasons why people fall into these scams, but gullibility and loneliness have also been advanced as reasons why people continue to pay attention to scammers."The report also quoted another IT expert, yaw Owusu, as saying , "The more naïve, the less educated and less exposed a person is to different people, a variety of life experiences, the more susceptible he or she becomes to scams of any form."Meanwhile, media reports from Australia stated that a Queensland, Australia woman who was conned out of more than $40,000 in an online scam would get some of the money back courtesy of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. The EFCC had reportedly recovered some of the money" from which the scammed Australian woman would get a cheque.The local media report said the "56-year-old woman was tricked into helping a 25-year-old Nigerian university student who posed as a middle-aged British widower needing money for medical and travel expenses."The student was convicted and sentenced to 19 years in jail by a Nigerian court last year..According to PCWorld "The campaign to freeze accounts associated with former Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha and former Zaire dictator Mobutu Sese Seko led to the birth of Internet scammers, who were posing as family members with stash of millions of dollars to hide from the authorities."The report quoting Bill Zimmerman said "As ICTs (became) more sophisticated, advance fee scams evolved to take advantage of new mediums such as instant messaging and online social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, Ning), and in the process became the global phenomenon (they are) today."
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