It just goes to show a certain class of americans are prey.You don't see them preying upon other Africans or minorites such as Liberians,Kenyans,etc.., because they will be the first to tell you can not ever ever trust a Nigerian. This goes back many decades of business dealings with Nigerians. Now you can all learn a lesson that there is no way to help invest in a country that has a corrupt gov't and corrupt citizens.

Anyone who participated in the scams should be held accountable. Also to all Americans we are to intelligent to fall for these scams open your eyes these people are underneath it all are envious of you they want to be us wealthy,happy,successful, educated they resort to any means to take that away from us at any time. Just look at their victims, what do they all have in common? Why dont they try to prey upon the black american community? Because they know that they would not get anywhere fast. Please educate and protect yourselves from these predatory 3rd world wannabe "America" nations. Wake up and realize you are the richest people in this world you have everything you need be proud and say it loud I LOVE YOU AMERICA!!

One way that scam artists manage to harvest email addresses is by scavenging emails from many Internet guest books. Don't believe me? Use Google and search for the words "mugu guymen 2006" (without the quotes) and you will see the guestbooks that are used by these "mugu guymen" (which is what they call themselves).

In addition to being a college student, I also bait these West African scammers. But I am not alone: there are literally thousands of other scam baiters like me whose obsession is to only to waste their time on themselves and not on true victims but also to cause them real pain.

This doctor is the same man that tried to operate on my mother two years ago, (Thank Jesus he didn't). Once I took a good look at him I knew his head wasn't screwed on right.

"K", you are correct. The "wash wash" scam is old.

"daffy", you are a victim of a love scammer. This is common on dating sites.

Everyone ----> Do a google search on the scammers email. Do some research on 419 scams. You will find a lot of resources on these scams at a number of websites.

Why be mad at nigerians, there are more criminals in the US than in nigeria. it's all an act of greed. And please don't call every Nigerian you see a scammer, cos they don't call every American drug dealers or murderers. Not everybody in this world is Honest and they know themselves.

Not EVERYONE gets scammed -- because there is a whole subculture of us out there who do nothing but mess with the scammers themselves -- any way possible to get them to waste their money and time. By us messing back, it's time/money they don't have available to mess with a real victim. I won't post the site URLs so that scammers who come here won't find it, but the clever person uses Google...

America is just ashamed and surprised that Nigeria out smarted them. In their eyes, they see Nigeria as very poor and undereducated- but they are highly mistaken.SCAMMERS ARE EVERYWHERE!Do not be surprised America!They come here and build businesses and are among the top students.

I have recieved e-mails from people asking me to give them my bank account number so they can transfer the millions of dollers they have in overseas account to me, ha funny. Anyways after seeing that story I looked at my e-mail and what do you know another letter but this one is from a woman claiming to be from zimbabwe. Do you think it is the people like in the piece?

I too was scammed. Just days after posting on line a time share for sale, I was contacted and involved myself whth several exchanges within a month. Some flags were raised like why would this party from Africa be interested in my condo (even as nice as it is), but there remained a portion of the dialogue I truely wanted to believe in. The party sent me a check and it was brought to our bank where the teller told my wife that there was no worry. The money would be placed in our account following that transaction because of it being a cashiers check. She remained leery and asked that a manager review the check. Once again we were assured that the check would have no problems clear. We received an urgent email saying that a business partner was having some financial problems and wanted us to wire money back via western union. I thought nothing about it since it was assured that the funds were in my account, and it came from this party. I wired the money. It took 2 weeks before we heard from the bank again, now telling us that the check was bogus, AND that the loss would be taken from our other account.I remain very disgruntled. These criminals are good. Just days after wiring the money, the email addressed that was used was closed, and could not be traced. I lost $3500, they initially wanted to send me $8,000.

As a hardworking Nigerian making a honest living I was very pleased to see this evil exposed on national news. About time! I have just two comments: 1. These criminals should have been handed off to the cops and not allowed to go; do you want them to continue these unconscionable acts? 2. You did not give a balance by stating that there are Nigerians who make a honest living and would like to expose these criminals like anyone else so that our names will not be linked to such ugly actions!

Someone once told me that "no one minds being scammed as long as no one finds out". I still don't buy that but what I would buy is that scams work because people are gullible and afraid to come forward. Instead of castigating the heart surgeon and others, we should be glad they came forward. It takes courage to put yourself out there like that. They are just human too. Being a doctor doesn't make you omnipotent.

"I go Chop ur $ Dollar". LOL. woow its really scarry when someone who was supposely an ex-top elected official of our country or whatever falls for a stupid obvious scam like this. Maybe all you Greedy jerks "MUGU" out there will learn from this. For you idiots still outthere i have a $25 million oil investment money in Nigeria and i need to get it out so i need ur help.You'll get a 25% cut. so get at me LOL idiots.MUGU

i guess what they say is true "Greed is the root of all evil"

HAHA MUGU!!
what idiot would be stupid enough to fall into such a obvious scam? oh i guess a greedy excongressman.

LOL

Brian Ross,

I began watching (with interest) your piece on the 419 scam; then something you said really put me off. How in the hell do you come off calling Lagos (or any other place for that matter) a "disgrace of a city". Show some damn respect!!

It may be crime ridden, but so is Atlanta, Los Angeles or Detroit. Or is it that you are so ashamed by "simple" Nigerians scamming your fellow "educated" citizens in the US that the only recourse you have is to refer to their home as a "disgrace".

All the prosperity, good living and weatlth in the world can't replace basic common sense. You should be interviewing all these "mugu's" in the USA and ask them how they could be so lacking in common sense. Surely, that in itself is a crime.

As some of the posts before me have said, both the scammers and victims are criminals. Anyone who jumps at an offer of 28.5 million dollars which they know they are not entiltled to is a criminal. Plain and simple.

It's such a pity to see what has become of my beloved country and people. I am not justifying the evil that these men do but then more questions should be asked. I reside in the States and have seen a lot of programs on TV demonstrating how poor "AFRICA" is and how the people are suffering. Isn't it a shame that someone living in a country like USA would still want to cheat the poor, suffering, oppressed and downpressed Nigerians? Someone riddle me this, isn't it a scam to give a poor man $340,000 or $20,000 or whatever for his $12 billion...come on, which poor, struggling man could be that generous???. Am not saying anybody deserves what they get but lets call a spade a spade here...both the giver and the receiver had one thing in mind..."SCAM".

Disgrace of a city? Is that how he put it lol. The documentary was very funny. Why the heck are people still falling for this? Well as long as there are MUGU's out there, 419 will always exist. Wise up America and stop falling for stupid obvious scams.

What most people don't realize is that the victims are not just "greedy " Americans, victims have included elderly people who may not even think in terms of fraud. The scams change as fast as law enforcement can find them. The people behind this type of fraud are masters of social engineering, telling the victims what they want to hear. I work this type of fraud everyday. The general public needs to understand they are responsible for what is deposited into their accounts no matter if they are victims or not. Just because the bank gives you credit on a item does not mean it will be a good deposit. It all comes back to " if sounds to good to be true, it is"

Much as I sympathise with the victims, I dare say that the white Americans who fell victims were intent from the outset to dump the Nigerian people of their money, just like the western companies have been doing with oil there. Otherwise, why would any sane mind want to reap where they did not sow? It is wrong to see the 419ers as the only villains. The second arm of the villainy are the victims, yes, the victims themselves. They are the big mugus (the big fools). If they were not greedy and wanted to get rich quick, they could not have fallen for such cheap con.

somebody tells you he's a smuggler trying to smuggle money and you put your trust in him. Geeeee, that's awesome dude!