According to Luis Corrons, Panda Security's technical director, fraudsters offer a commission to the recipient of the email for helping them get the money out of the country, but ask for an advanced fee from the intended victim.
The bad news, he said, is that the whole operation is a fraud, and you will lose any money you pay.
“These kind of scams are among the first ones in the internet era, dating back to the 80's – and [since] they work, they will be always there as long as there are people falling in these old school tricks. The reason to use Nigeria was because at that moment there was a big political mess there”, he said in his latest security blog.
“Nowadays the situation is better, with their economy being one of the fastest growing in the world. It doesn’t matter, as people [don't] know [this] unless it appears in the news… and that’s what some cybercriminals are thinking, as there are some other countries that lately have appeared in the media”, he adds.
Corrons goes on to say that the fraudsters now appear to have switched form Nigerian to Libya, adding a link to Wikipedia about a Libyan general that has recently died:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Fatah_Younis
Pls help me safeguard this
$42M USD currently logged in a security company in SPAIN by my late father Abdul Fatah Younis, who was arrested and killed by rebel force (NFSL). I will give you more details upon ur acceptance.
Ahmmad YounisLibya
As Corrons says, you have to agree that $42 million is an important amount of money.
But – as he asks – would you answer this message?