West Africa`s notorious 419 scammers - who so often lure gullible people into their clutches by offering exorbitant amounts of money in order to gain access to the victim`s bank details - appear to have updated their tactics.
Reuters reports that the scammers` latest tactics involve tapping e-mail networks and posing as major London banks.
Britain`s National Criminal Intelligence Service has reported that it is investigating a new technique by swindlers, which sees them sending e-mails under the name of a top executive from one of the UK`s bigger banks, from an authentic-looking e-mail address.
A bogus e-mail, purportedly from an executive at Barclays and bearing an address that appeared to belong to the bank, was recently sent out across the UK and abroad.
The mail requested permission from the victim for the bank to temporarily park $30 million in the recipient`s bank account in return for a large share of the money, in much the same way as the original 419 scam claimed to need an external account in order to get vast sums of money out of any one of a number of African countries.
Barclays is not the only British bank that has been targeted by the fraudsters, with Lloyds TSB reporting that it has been targeted by a similar scam, in which fraudsters sent mass e-mails from a phoney Lloyds account, referring recipients to a fake Lloyds Web site.
The site asked users to enter bank account and credit card details, according to Lloyds spokesman, Emile Abu-Shakra. He says it was shut down by police the same day it was discovered and that none of the bank`s customers lost money on it.
The intelligence service says that although it is unclear who is behind the Barclays e-mail scam, it bore the hallmarks of West African fraudsters, especially Nigerians, who pioneered schemes using traditional mail and counterfeit letterhead stationery decades ago.
"It`s clearly a development and a refinement," says a law enforcement official, adding that fraudsters had already tricked Britons out of millions of pounds - with each victim last year losing on average an estimated lb22 000 (around R250 000).
"Funnily enough, a lot of very, very rich people fall for this type of scheme, particularly very high net-worth individuals who are usually self-made, possibly because these people are accustomed to taking the sort of risk that you or I are not prepared to take," says the official.
He says the banks had become a target because of their high profile and the trust they evoke, meaning that victims were more likely to fall for the scam.
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