A bit of a twist on the Nigerian 419 scam, where the scammer is claiming that they represent the UN and various governments trying to return scammed money back to the victims. It is making the rounds in various forms. I've said it before, I'll say it again, If it seems to good to be true, it is. Money sent to fraudsters in foreign countries is lost, gone forever. One looks like this:

FROM: PAUL OWENS & Co. Solicitors.

Dear Beneficiary,

We are London based solicitors working as representative solicitors to the United Nations, delegated to Nigeria for the investigation and payment of allscam victims and all unreleased payments. In the course of a recently concluded 2010 investigations and subsequent arrests of suspected fraudsters in African region, in collaboration with the present governments of Nigeria, Ghana, Cote D'Ivoire, Burkina Faso and South Africa, the UN security operatives have so far arrested and prosecuted over 300 government and banking officials and arrest is still going on.

So far, the UN security operative has also recovered about $5.1 Billion from both cash in accounts and properties and assets confiscated. It is from the address books of the arrested officials that your email address was recovered.

Right now, the United Nations (UN) and their Africa Union (AU) counterpart is paying a $3,000,000.00 compensation to those whose emails addresses and other personal data are recovered and also paying full contract or inheritance and wining amounts to those with provable information qualifying them as genuine contractors and beneficiaries of funds in the affected countries.

Which Category do you fall? Have you lost money to scam? or are you still in communication with anyone? Are you a legitimate contractor and fund beneficiary in any of the affected countries? Please respond to this e-mail for your compensation payment to be released to you.

Please, indicate clearly as you get back to me for proper guidelines and details on how to receive this compensation OR your full payment. After search through the internets and various confessions from this impostors, we found these details about you and we would want you to reconfirm I would want you to reconfirm and get back to me and I will give you directives on how you are to get your funds. Your Funds has been approved by the UN, Federal Government of Nigeria and the Federal Ministry of Finance so you are covered.

All I do need from you to reconfirm your informations properly

(1)Your Name In Full :....................
(2)Your Delivery Address:.............
(3)Your Occupation:.......................
(4)Your Contact Telephone Number:.......
(5) Age:..................
(6) Sex:..................
 

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So, what do you think? Legit or scam? I am leaning towards scam. Still the odd typo and awkward grammar. Oh, and the Gmail address for the Solicitors is a bit of a giveaway. Last but not least, the phone number also belongs to "INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (IMF, HEAD OFFICE NO: 23 ADEBOYE ST,APAPA LAGOS. TELEPHONE : +234-8024892004". Thanks to CJ for sending this one in. Comments?

Cheers,
Adrien de Beaupré
intru-shun.ca
Teaching SANS Sec560 in Toronto #sanstoronto, 21-26 Nov 2011
sans.org/toronto-2011-cs-2