Guess what? Nigerian email scamsters looted Rs 5240 cr from gullible Indians in 2013

It’s impossible to have had an email account and not been contacted by a Nigerian prince, bank or lawyer who has millions stashed away and just needs your bank account number and a not so tiny payment for it to be sent across. Guess what, it turns out Indians have been among most gullible globally.

A recent report by Ultrascan Advanced Global Investigations, an Amsterdam-based subsidiary of international research organisationUltrascan Research Services, found that in 2013 Indians paid a whopping $870 million, coming in 4th globally. (at current exchange rates thats around Rs 5240 crore) That’s a jump of over $200 million from the amount paid in 2012. (See table below)

[caption id=“attachment_91421” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”]  Source: Ultrascan-AGI[/caption]

According to the report, these scams, called Nigerian 419 Advance Fee Fraud (AFF), are on the rise in countries like China and India.

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In countries like India, themodus operandiof these fraudsters includes employing Indian citizens with low incomes to do work like opening bank accounts, registering companies with the chamber of commerce and receiving money transfers in India.

The scamsters now also use Asian names to target victims in order to disguise the Nigerian origin of the scam, the report said.

In 2013, India had 49 active resident scam rings, with 4,670 resident scammers operating within the country. Ultrascan said it received 656 complaints from India last year regarding such scams.

Frank Engelsman, director of Ultrascan AGI, told_Hindustan Times_in an e-mail, “India is among the top five growing markets for Nigerian advance fee frauds.” He added that Kolkata has emerged as a major fraud centre.

As for profits - in 2009, before sharing revenues with other scam rings, groups targetting Indians saw a profit of $251 million, which worked out to $55.22 million after sharing.

[caption id=“attachment_91418” align=“aligncenter” width=“640”]  Source: Ultrascan-AGI[/caption]

From a global point of view, the US was the biggest loser when it came to these scams, with Americans losing a whopping $2,310 million. China came in second with $1,750 million and the UK was third with $1,210 million.