Gangs (22 page)

‘Although the approach is different,’ says Duncan of NCIS, ‘the basic idea is exactly the same. Those who respond are asked to pay certain lawyers’ fees or cover tax liabilities before they can get their hands on the main payment. In some cases they will blatantly ask someone to lie and say they are a relative and share the money. When they do this, it means the victim is far less likely to go to the police when they end up being fleeced.

‘Churches and charities have also been targeted. They are informed they have been left a considerable amount of money in the will of a recently deceased person. The letter goes on to say that the deceased person had attended that particular church on a visit to the UK or had an interest in the charity. If followed up by the recipient, then the requests begin for the payment of certain fees and the organisation is sucked into the fraud.’

The very latest variation often sees the victim rather than the fraudster going to prison. The key to this scam is that, rather than being asked for money, the victims are actually given it instead.

Using plants who have infiltrated the Royal Mail and other postal services, the gangs steal high-value cheques and, with the aid of high-tech forgery equipment, change the name of the payee to that of their target. Because of the size of the companies targeted and the complexities of their accounting procedures, it is not unusual for it to take more than six months for the bank to report that a cheque of this kind is no good.

This scam is also cropping up more and more with day-to-day transactions conducted in the classified-ad sections of newspapers. One woman contacted me to say that, when she advertised her car, she received a call from a Nigerian man who wanted to buy it and have it shipped over. He said that for various tax reasons, he would be sending her a cheque for £6000 more than the cost of the car and that, once it had cleared, she should wire him back the difference.

The cheque did indeed clear, and a week or so later the woman sent the Nigerian buyer the money. It was only several weeks later that her bank informed her that the cheque had been stolen and illegally altered. She found herself without a car and owing the bank some £22,000.

Although Amsterdam is a hotbed of activity, the 419 scam is alive and well right here in the UK. Prosecutions, however, are rare, as those involved tend to ensure they deal only with victims who are living abroad.

In June 2002 George Agbinone and Ovie Ukueku were jailed after pleading guilty to an advanced-fee fraud that netted them more than half a million pounds. At least eighteen victims from the USA and various European countries were called to give evidence but police suspected the pair had fleeced many others who were simply too embarrassed to come forward.

While advance-fee frauds are not exclusively Nigerian, the use of such scenarios almost always is. Where other criminals are concerned the methods used to entice their victims are entirely different. In the summer of 2003 three Britons, Dennis Alexander, David Andrews and George Steen, were jailed for up to six years for defrauding hundreds of businessmen in a scam that brought them in the region of £4 million. Operating out of the resort town of Brighton on the east Sussex coast, the trio placed advertisements in various foreign publications inviting businessmen in need of additional funding to apply for commercial loans ranging from half a million to twenty million pounds.

Once the requests had been received, the company would notify the applicants that their loan had been accepted in principle and that a non-refundable administration fee of up to £7000 was required to progress it to the ‘offer stage’. Hundreds paid up and were then told that further fees of up to £20,000 were payable to get access to the final loan. But in every single case, the company found a condition the applicant was unable to meet, turned them down and kept their fees.

February 2003 saw the first murder committed by the victim of a 419 scam. Seventy-two-year-old retired doctor Jiri Pasovsky marched into the Nigerian embassy in Prague and shot dead Michael Wayi, ambassador to the Czech republic.

Pasovsky had visited the embassy frequently in an effort to get Nigerian authorities to help him recoup the £400,000 he had lost in a scam involving a stake in a non-existent oil pipeline. He had borrowed thousands from his neighbours to keep the deal going and, after believing for months that he was about to become rich, finally accepted that he had been the victim of a sophisticated fraud. Pasovsky had been seeking the Nigerian government’s help in getting his money back for almost a year before he met with Wayi for the last time.

Pasovsky’s actions may appear extreme but there is increasing evidence to show that those who do fall victim to the scams, particularly those who lose large sums of money, can become incredibly vulnerable.

‘One particularly cynical gang actually targeted people who had been caught out in the past,’ says Duncan. ‘They received official-looking letters from the Nigerian Presidential Task Force on Debt Repayment and were told that the fraudster responsible had recently been convicted and their assets seized. Any money lost could now be repaid to all victims – all that was needed was the recipient’s full financial details so the money could be transferred into their bank accounts. Those that responded soon found their accounts drained of whatever money was left behind in the aftermath of the first fraud.’

A few days after I return from Amsterdam, acting on a hunch, I send Tao a long email. I explain that I knew right from the start that he was trying to defraud me and that I only went along with him to see what would happen. I tell him that he made the mistake of thinking I was a
mugu
– a word that roughly translates as ‘big fool’ and is used by the 419 fraudsters to describe their victims.

That same afternoon my telephone rings. It is Tao. But instead of being angry he is full of compliments and admiration. He congratulates me on not having fallen for his scheme and tries to justify his actions. ‘In Lagos, everyone is very poor. Nobody wants to be poor, everyone wants to escape from it. There is no point in working, no man ever got rich working for a living. And there is no point in stealing it – for that they will cut off your hands and burn a tyre around your neck. The best thing is to find a scam and make your money that way. You see, any fool can steal money but to find a scam and make it work, that takes brains and intellect. In Nigeria, most people believe that if you are clever enough to make a scam work, then you should be entitled to keep the spoils.’

Tao claims to have been working the 419 scams for more than ten years and to have made more than half a million dollars during this time. ‘When I first started I worked with someone else, someone who knew the business well, but now I work for myself, I am the boss.

‘It’s not a small operation. We have people who write the letters, people who create the documents and others who talk to clients on the phone and many more. And it’s not just Nigerians. You wouldn’t be alone. There are people from all races working this business all over the world.

‘I have two foreigners who work for me, white guys. They lost money in this business and now they work with me. They recruit
mugu
in Europe and I send them a share of the money I make. There is a role for you if you want it, you can make money. It is good that you are in London. You can make a good business there.’

Tao explains that, if I join the scam, I would take on the role of the British manager of a security company. Tao would pass on the details of potential victims and I would then contact them to confirm that Tao is legit and that the offer is bona fide. Because I would be seen as a separate, third party, the victims would have less reason to be suspicious. Tao promises to pay me a 50 per cent share of whatever monies he receives and all but guarantees an income of tens of thousands of pounds. He advises me to set up separate fax and telephone facilities so that I cannot be traced. ‘There is plenty of money out there. You would be surprised at how many people want something for nothing. Greed makes them foolish. About one in three who comes to Amsterdam give us money. They may be cynical when they first receive the email but once they are given a telephone number and get to speak to someone in person, they always start to believe it is real. Some of them even know about the
barawo
[criminals] but believe that because they have a telephone number, they are safe.’

I tell Tao that I will think about it and end our phone call. I do not hear from him again and I am not surprised. I feel certain he would have found a way to force me to pay something upfront before I could begin working with him. The truth is that, even if I were another criminal, I wouldn’t trust Tao at all.

In the latter part of 2003 customers of all the major high-street banks were hit by a new kind of email fraud asking them to log on to their banks’ website for a security check. In each case the criminals had constructed a fake but convincing-looking email using the official logo and included a link to take the customers through to the website.

The link appeared to be genuine – for example www.barclays.co.uk, which is Barclays’ real web address – but although the page they were taken through to looked identical to the real thing, it was a fake website set up by the fraudsters. Customers were then asked to type in their user names, passwords and membership numbers – information that went straight to the fraudsters and allowed them to begin raiding accounts.

All the high-street banks constantly monitor Internet traffic to pick up on potential rogue activity. Measures include the use of special-service devices that trawl through cyberspace and look out for any incidents where a bank’s name is being used out of context. Thanks to this, only a few dozen accounts were attacked but the raiders still stole tens of thousands of pounds.

Incidents of ‘phishing’ and ‘spoofing’ (two forms of online fraud) rose by more than 400 per cent during 2003, according to the National High Tech Crime Unit. And while only a tiny proportion of customers will ever fall for the scam, no one believes the problem is going to go away.

The very first credit-card fraud was attempted one day after the launch of Barclaycard. It was inevitable that, as people became more used to the Internet and felt more comfortable using it for all aspects of their finances, the weakest link in the technology chain – the people – would be attacked. Willie Sutton, the notorious US bank robber, was once asked why he always went for banks and famously replied, ‘Because that’s where the money is.’ With more and more money circulating around the Internet and computerised banking systems, it comes as no surprise to find the latest generation of criminals setting their sights there.

‘The banks brag about their firewalls and virus protection and say that customers can trust them online,’ says one officer with the National High Tech Crime Unit. ‘The trouble with that is that once one person trusts another they create the perfect opportunity for the criminals to move on in.’

 

The first time I meet her, tucked away at the back of the public gallery of Hendon magistrates’ court, she tells me her name is Elaine. A week later, when we meet for a drink in Mill Hill, she apologises for lying and tells me that her real name is Suzanne, pulling out her photocard driving licence to prove that, this time, she is indeed telling the truth. Later than night, when the barman of her local pub refers to her as ‘Julie’ she simply looks at me and bursts out laughing.

The truth is that Mary – the name she uses most often – is an elite member of a team of high-tech criminals taking advantage of the latest technology to empty people’s bank accounts through dozens of cutting-edge schemes and scams. Being able to switch identities at a moment’s notice – enabling her to walk into every shop or bank along a particular street and pretend to be a different person with a different credit card each time – is one of her key skills and something she likes to practise even during her spare time. ‘I like the idea of people in different places knowing me by different names and having to remember them all,’ she confides. ‘It keeps me on my toes. There are so many times that shop assistants have gone off to check whether something is in stock, then come back and called me by the name on the card from across the room. I can’t afford to hesitate for even a moment in case I make them suspicious. It was hard at first but now I’m used to it.’

Mary was in court after being arrested with ten false passports, all with different names and all with her picture inside. She was upset, not because of what will happen to her, not because for the first time the police have a good-quality picture of her to use on
Crimewatch
(the last time round no one realised it was her and she has never been charged) but because the passports were linked to a job that would have netted her a major share of £80,000.

Mary is well-spoken and immaculately turned out. Born to successful white middle-class parents, Mary is a million miles away from the age-old image of the ‘kiter’ – the name given to women who walk into shops and buy high-value goods with stolen credit cards. Once upon a time kiting was a good way of making money. The credit-card companies simply swallowed their losses and never worked too hard to pursue those involved. In the early days the window of opportunity between a card being stolen and a report being made to the issuing bank was wide. Thieves had days, sometimes even weeks, before their purchases drew even the slightest suspicion.

These days, the chances of getting caught with a stolen card have increased greatly – as have the penalties. ‘Back in the eighties lots of shops still had those machines that imprinted the card details on a piece of carbon paper. There was no connection to the credit-card company at all, apart from a book with a list of stolen cards that no one ever looked in.