wfn.org | Episcopalians: Internet scams target soft hearts and big wallets of Episcopalians

[dmack@episcopalchurch.org]

July 15, 2003

2003-160

Episcopalians: Internet scams target soft hearts and big wallets 
of Episcopalians

by Jan Nunley

(ENS) If you're on the Internet, especially if your email 
address appears on any website, you must have received at least 
one of them. The messages come from someone you don't know--many 
from Nigeria, or from another African country--with an offer 
that's too good to be true, or a tale so sad it can't help but 
touch your heart.

And if you're not careful, it can clean out your bank 
account,too.

The Rev. Benjamin Musoke-Lubega, Africa Partnerships Officer for 
the Episcopal Church Center, has been receiving an increasing 
number of inquiries from individuals and parishes in the U.S. 
who have been targeted by these scam artists. Some come by 
email. Others are sent by "snail mail," to names and addresses 
gleaned from Internet sources: parish and diocesan web sites, 
news stories, or churchwide directories. 

Variously known as "advance fee fraud" or "419" schemes (after 
the relevant section of the Nigerian penal code), they're an old 
con made easier by the instantaneous nature of electronic 
communications. According to the US Secret Service's "Operation 
419"website, most such schemes follow this formula:

*An individual or organization receives an email, letter or fax 
from someone who claims to represent a foreign government or 
agency, offering to transfer millions of dollars into a personal 
bank account;

*Documents arrive with official-looking stamps, seals and logos 
testifying to the authenticity of the proposal;

*The target is requested to provide banking account information, 
telephone/fax numbers, or blank company letterhead forms, and to 
provide advance fees for various taxes, attorney fees, 
transaction fees or bribes.

Secret Service on the trail

"The most prevalent and successful cases of Advance Fee Fraud is 
the fund transfer scam," says the Secret Service site. "In this 
scheme, a company or individual will typically receive an 
unsolicited letter by mail from a Nigerian claiming to be a 
senior civil servant. In the letter, the Nigerian will inform 
the recipient that he is seeking a reputable foreign company or 
individual into whose account he can deposit funds ranging from 
$10-$60 million that the Nigerian government overpaid on some 
procurement contract." The goal is not to clean out the victim's 
bank account immediately, but to persuade the victim to 
volunteer a huge sum later to "save the deal" when it's 
artificially threatened. 

Sometimes the victim is encouraged to travel to Nigeria--without 
a visa--and winds up missing. Secret Service agents are 
currently on temporary assignment at the American Embassy in 
Lagos to help US citizens victimized by the scams. The Financial 
Crimes Division of the Secret Service reports it receives 
approximately 100 telephone calls from victims and potential 
victims, and up to 500 pieces of related correspondence, per 
day.

Appeals to Christian fellowship

But while most of the 419 scams target simple greed, a new 
variant seems to appeal to Christian fellowship.

An early version purports to be from a retired Nigerian military 
officer, a convert from Islam to Christianity, wanting to donate 
$45 million diverted from the Nigerian government to God's work, 
specifically to "your ministry." Another "new Christian convert" 
letter claims to come from the elderly, childless widow of a 
sheik killed during the Gulf War, who is suffering from cancer 
and looking for a place to send her wealth "because I have come 
to find out that wealth acquisition without Christ is vanity 
upon vanity." 

The letter says, "I selected your church after visiting the 
website and I prayed over it, I am willing to donate the sum of 
US$5,000 000.00(Five Million US Dollars) to your Church for the 
development of your church and also for the less privileged." 

Musoke-Lubega said that one recent scam, apparently aimed at 
U.S. Episcopalians, involved a handwritten, hand-addressed 
letter purporting to be from "Tusubira Ivy," a nursing student 
in Uganda, asking for money to complete her nursing training. 
The letter comes with an endorsement from "Sr. Kyoyagala Helen," 
the principal of "St. Teresa Nursing Training School" in 
Kampala. The only address given is a post office box; the 
school's return email is a free Yahoo.com account. 

Easy money

The letters have gone to a broad range of Episcopalians--among 
others, a clergyperson in North Carolina, a bishop in New 
England, and members of the Church Center staff. Letters viewed 
by Episcopal News Service, addressed to two different locations 
and sent several weeks apart, are identical in wording, written 
on paper from a lavender legal pad.

Another letter claimed to be from the wife of a bishop needing a 
heart transplant. "The letter was suspicious just from looking 
at it," Musoke-Lubega recalled. "The name of the diocese was in 
a different part of the country from the address where they 
wanted the money sent. We checked it out and it was false."

Some American bishops have already been "taken in" by such 
letters. One sent a check for $300 to a location in Africa and 
was later dismayed to find it had been cashed in India--for 
$3,000. "Somebody in the line was duped," he said. "For the 
price of a stamp or email account, out of a hundred if they get 
20 such responses they can make a killing."

Appearances can deceive

With so much need in the world, it seems hard-hearted to say no 
to everyone who asks. What should you do if you receive such a 
letter or email?

If it's an email, recommended Musoke-Lubega, "delete it." If 
you're intent on seeing the perpetrators brought to justice, you 
can send the offending message (with full headers) to the Secret 
Service and to their email provider's "abuse address," usually a 
note sent to abuse@[domainname] will reach the proper inbox.

With a letter, "the first thing to do is not to send money right 
away, to do some checking." His office was recently able to help 
a church organization that received a solicitation letter 
carrying the signature of an African bishop. "I was able to call 
the bishop, fax the information, and within two days they came 
back and said, No, we don't know this person, even the 
signature doesn't belong to the bishop," he said.

If the need seems genuine, he said, it's best to channel the 
funds through a local African partner, such as a diocese or 
provincial office, which would be able to make certain that the 
money goes to the right person for the right purpose.

"I think there's an impulse on the part of clergy to say, I 
have this amount in my discretionary account, why can't I help 
this person?'" he explained. " But the person you are helping on 
the other end is not what they appear to be."

------

--the Rev. Jan Nunley is deputy director of Episcopal News 
Service.