Did the infamous Nigeria (4 19) scam originate in Nigeria?

Have you seen the following scam messages?

If, like me, you think this scam is too funny and no one will fall for it, then many people will fall for it. For example, many people in the world fall for it every year, such as getting a link in the notice of winning the lottery, then getting personal and bank account information step by step, and even asking them to pay a deposit. For another example, someone promised to get you an order or a project, but for various reasons, you need to pay some money first. After that, you can't even get in touch with them for various reasons. Is this not far from your side?

The above fraud mode is usually introduced as a Nigerian fraud (also known as 4 19 fraud). To sum up, the basic routine of fraud in Nigeria is that the swindler introduces to the payee by mail that he has huge wealth that needs to be transferred through a third party and wants to borrow the payee's letterhead bank account. And promised a certain percentage of commission after the job is done. After someone took the initiative to take the bait, they took the opportunity to collect fees or other fees for various reasons to defraud. Liars may call themselves Nigerian princes, officials, oil businessmen and so on.

Nigerian scams were popular in the 1980s and 1990s, and many of them claimed to be Nigerian oil merchants or princes. Some of them claimed to be the directors of the national oil company NNPC. These frauds deceived many European and American companies and individuals, and many areas in Lagos became fraud centers at that time, so that the White House later put pressure on the Nigerian government to take effective measures. Now you can also see the introduction of Nigerian fraud on the FBI website. As for why it is called 4 19, it certainly doesn't mean "for one night", but actually comes from Article 4 19 of Nigerian Criminal Law on fraud (Chapter 38, Part I: Crime of Obtaining Property by Deception).

However, according to relevant information, this scam of defrauding advance payment by promising income has already appeared, such as 18 and 19 century Spanish prisoner scam. Generally, the model is that a liar claims to be a rich man or a relative of a rich man, and is imprisoned in other capacities, and needs help to facilitate rescue, and will pay him after completion; For example, similar letter fraud can be traced back to 1922 in Germany. In addition, a data in 2006 showed that more than 60% of such online scams came from the United States, 65,438+06% from the United Kingdom, only 6% from Nigeria, and other countries such as Cote, South Africa, Spain and Jamaica.

From the time point of view, this fraud model did not originate in Nigeria, when the Nigerian liar was at most an apprentice; In terms of scale, the market share of Nigerian scams is also the level of a second-rate brand. But how did the Nigerian scam become synonymous with this kind of fraud and the "initiator"? Perhaps a very important factor is that they set up funny people when they cheated, and the identity of "Nigerian prince" gave people a deep impression; In addition, it may be related to the concentrated outbreak of Nigerian scammers at that time, which attracted the attention of the whole world for a while.

There are fewer scams in Nigeria now. After all, not many people call themselves princes. With the development of information technology, this kind of scam is easy to be seen through. However, similar evolutionary scams are still popular in Nigeria, China or other places, especially the new Internet scams. In Nigeria, this gang engaged in online fraud is called "Yahoo Boy". Among many fraud methods, one is that a liar pretends to be a handsome guy or a beautiful woman, and establishes trust with the fraud object through online chat and other communication methods, so as to obtain money. I want to remind some friends that I hope you will not become the Magha (Yoruba slang, meaning "easy target or fool") in the mouth of swindlers.

Although it is culpable of punishment for being stigmatized as a liar, naming a scam after a country has had an indelible negative impact on Nigeria's image, and personally, it is somewhat unfair and objective.

Human beings are constantly advancing, and it is understandable to name specific affairs in a simple and rude way at a certain historical stage. After all, it can't be revised, but when it comes to new situations, it is really embracing progress, not following the old rules. For example, there is no evidence that the Spanish epidemic broke out in Spain at that time, and the outbreak in the United States and other places was earlier than that in Spain. However, considering that the war at that time was confidential and was widely reported by the media in Spain, Spain took this name from then on. Now human beings have begun to avoid naming viruses by land names, such as H 1N9, such as COVID 19, but some people really have to stand on the opposite side of progress and will eventually be shot dead on the beach by the back waves.

Thank you for reading, welcome to pay attention, I am in Nigeria.