National Nigerian Fraud Symposium 2007
By Richard Wall - Operations Manager, Modern Investigative Solutions
Modern Investigative Solutions recently received an invitation to attend the first National Nigerian Fraud Symposium by the Queensland Police service. To say we were flattered is an understatement; the caliber of professionals was impressive to say the least.
Delegates from nearly every law enforcement agency in the country attended, private sector was well represented and joined the numerous international guest's. Delegates were sent from Nigeria's EFCC (Economic and Financial Crime Commission), Nigeria's special cyber crimes unit, Ghana's cyber crimes unit, Hong Kong's Commercial Crime Bureau, The Nigerian Consular to Australia, The FBI, the list goes on and on. Senior management from some of the worlds largest companies such as Microsoft, Sophos, Western Union, EBay, all the major banks etc etc.
After some generous social activities organized by Queensland Police the Symposium was under way. It needs to be stated that the name "Nigerian Scam" is not correct. These types of scams have been going on for years, and from every corner of the world. The correct name for this type of fraud is Advanced Fee Fraud (AFF). This is not for political correctness. It is exactly what they are, Political correctness is a side benefit. The first thing I realized is that the current threat of E-scams, Phishing, Credit Card Fraud and the like is far worse than we had originally expected. Here's a few stats to help you grasp a hold of just how bad it is…
These figures are based on just Queensland and just for Advance Fee Fraud, the Advance Fee Fraud make up just shy of approximately 30% of all monies lost. In 2006-2007 the Queensland Police started investigating complaints about those annoying "Nigerian" scams, out of 139 people interviewed 134 were found to have been victims. That's over 97%, of this figure the scammers had fleeced over $18 million dollars. Of the $18 odd million dollars lost, the police were able to recover approximately $1.4 million. Remember, that's just for Queensland and just for the Advance Fee Fraud. Incredibly of the victims, a staggering 76% did not believe the Police and continued to send money! Nationally this type of crime is estimated to be costing the Australian economy over $600 million a year. Now one more stat to just blow your mind. For every 1 scam tried here in Australia, 10 people in Nigeria have been scammed... No-one escapes these mongrels.
Now you would think the news can't get any worse, but it does. Of all the sectors included in this study, the hardest hit was businesses, with over $10 million a year being scammed. Who gets to take up the short fall?, The consumer of course. With such large losses to business and the increasingly sophisticated methods being employed by the scammers it is clearly getting harder and harder for business to identify when they are being scammed, laundering money or being duped to send goods over seas; and when they do, typically in the past the chances of ever recovering some money are very limited if not impossible.
The industry is addressing these issues collectively, which is great but there is a long way to go. Because of this new approach Modern Investigative Solutions has been able to establish some very good relationships with the right people. For example we now have the capacity to investigate an Advance Fee Fraud on behalf of our client to the same capacity as the Police service, take the brief directly the Nigerian High Commission for the EFCC to prosecute. When the perpetrator is identified and arrested, his assets are frozen and upon conviction sold and divided up to pay the victims restitution, our client. Of course this is not absolute for every case, but it is a very big step forward.
So why come to us? The loss may not justify the resources of the already over worked Police service. The time to investigate may be critical, it may not fall in the correct jurisdiction for effective reaction and the list can go on. I am not bagging the Police service, they do an incredible job with the resources at their disposal, however they look at every case as a matter of law. We can investigate as a matter of loss and can seek the appropriate restitution. Further to this, the Police usually only react to this sort of incident after the fact, we can look at the evidence and conduct inquiries to establish if it is indeed a scam in the first place. Prevention in this case is much better than the cure.
For those of you who are sitting there saying," How gullible are these people being scammed?", here is a list of the different occupations that have been stung: Doctors, Lawyers, Barristers, Entrepreneurs, mums and Dads, Engineers, Professional Fraudsters (That's correct), Police, Investors, Tradesmen, Laborers, even Al-Qaeda (I actually support this one though!) etc. They don't miss anybody, and they are that good.
Finally Small, Medium and Large Enterprise have an effective and knowledgeable solution to minimize their risks to severe loss from these scams and should they fall victim, we can initiate an investigation within hours.
Richard Wall
Operations Manager
Modern Investigative Solutions