LAGOS, July 19 — Advance-fee scams, in which victims pay money upfront in the expectation of receiving something of greater value and then receive little or nothing, have evolved from handwritten letters to mass email campaigns but retain the same basic structure, according to definitions used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The scheme is commonly associated with Nigeria, where it is known as the 419 scam — a reference to Section 419 of the Nigerian Criminal Code dealing with fraud.
But the head of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission stated in 2007 that the emails more frequently originated from other African countries or from Eastern Europe. The record shows such fraud has been documented in Ivory Coast, Togo, South Africa, the Netherlands, Spain and Jamaica.
Within the European Union, the Netherlands and Spain have reported a particularly high incidence of these scams.
Deep historical roots
The modern iteration of the advance-fee scam traces to Germany in 1922 and gained widespread popularity in the 1980s, but its origins are older still. A closely related swindle, the Spanish Prisoner scam, dates to the late 18th century. In that variation, businessmen were contacted by someone claiming to need a bribe to smuggle a person connected to a wealthy family out of a Spanish prison, in exchange for a share of the money.
An even earlier variant titled “The Letter from Jerusalem” appears in the memoirs of Eugène François Vidocq, a former French criminal and private investigator active in the 18th or 19th century. A version dated roughly 1830 opens with the words: “Sir, you will doubtlessly be astonished to be receiving a letter from a person unknown to you, who is about to ask a favour from you.” It then describes a casket containing gold and diamonds belonging to a late marchioness, supposedly valued at 16,000 francs.
The Spanish Prisoner and Jerusalem letters both follow the same pattern: the victim is promised a large reward in exchange for a modest upfront payment or bribe.
Rise of the Nigerian variant
In the 1980s, official-looking letters began circulating in which the writer claimed to be a director of the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation. The story was that a sum of money had been budgeted but never spent, and the recipient could keep a percentage of the funds by helping to transfer the money out of the country. Other variants mention a Nigerian prince or a member of the royal family.
These letters were sent by international post, a costly and slow method. The spread of email and email-harvesting software dramatically lowered the cost of distribution, allowing scammers to send millions of messages at negligible expense.
The emails invariably feature implausible claims, officials have noted, but the sheer volume ensures that some recipients still respond. Today, the scams have evolved into other guises, including fake job offers and investment opportunities. All retain the core mechanism: the victim is asked to pay a fee upfront to unlock a larger sum that never materialises.
Authorities in multiple countries continue to warn that no legitimate business or government agency requests advance payments in exchange for large transfers of funds. The FBI defines the crime as fraud where victims pay money in anticipation of receiving a loan, contract, investment or gift — and then get little or nothing in return.
Given the low cost of sending fraudulent emails and the difficulty of prosecuting scammers operating across borders, law enforcement officials expect these schemes to persist. The 2007 testimony by Nigeria’s anti-corruption chief, pointing to the broad geographic distribution of the scam’s origin, underscores that advance-fee fraud is not confined to any single country.
