Nigerian Mail & Phising

By Spanish law, the cyber police here are not allowed to follow trails of cyber delinquents who commit fraudulent crimes with email and other illegal means, unless they have been clearly and openly denounced. If they act on their own, even when the crime is evident, the cyber agents will be accused of incitement or provocation, becoming the hunters hunted. They can only act when any crime has actually been carried out, or proven to have been committed.

A good example is the swindle the police could persecute, if they were permitted by law, is the so nicknamed 'Nigerian mail', which has been in practice for some time. Email signed by someone with a typical and resounding African name asking help to take out large sum of money from some country, in exchange for a succulent commission. This had surprising hooked a lot of people. These mail are done in several languages. The swindlers contracted part time students of Erasmus to do the translation. It's done via legal firms and the students don't know what they are in for.

Recently the National Police arrested 23 people in and around Madrid, who sent out daily 20.000 mail of this kind, with which most surprisingly, they had managed to cheat 150 people of the United States and of Europe. Paradoxically, what the Spanish police can't do the reporters can. One well distributed newspaper here responded to a donation of € 80,000 offered by one such Mr. Anani Kassa, in what is clearly a variation of the 'Nigerian mail', but in French. It's done from an Email address created for the purpose, and the supposedly lawyer Anani Kassa answered within 24 hours from an Email address, which led to the Republic of Benin. Mr. Kassa urged the press to facilite them a current account to send the money. Then with a new mail in which the press showed certain reticence, he facilitated a telephone number in Benin.

At the end, obviously, the newspaper did not close the deal, knowing that it was a swindle. But as they had not actually cheated the press out of anything, there's nothing to denounce. The police simply can't interfere. But other police from other countries could have followed it up.

In the same classic line of cyber-swindle, there's phishing, which consists of a correspondence seemingly from a bank, to update client's personal details, requesting them to facilitate their identification and password. If you do that, all your money would no doubt disappear in a very short time, with the thief having a high time, far away in another part of the world.

Tags:,swindle,phising

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