French TV report

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Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2009 11:46 pm

Hello everyone !
I'm proud to announce here that the TV report we participated in has been aired this week on one of the national French channel.
It's a full 37 minutes long report on scams from west Africa AND on scambaiting.
It's one of the most complete report I've seen of the subject. The only pity is that it was too short about scambaiting... Sad

Anyway, here it is, divided into 4 parts for youtube.

I know most of you don't speak french so I've made a little summary for each part.

Part 1 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49ovtfpU6aQ
- 3 minutes of ads that you can skip.
- Portrait of a French victim who lost 13,000 euros for a romance scammer from Ghana.
- Quick explanation of the scams, presentation of what the French government has put in place and its ridiculous advertisements.
- Where do these scams come from ? We go to Abidjan meet a scammer, Loto. We follow him buy some expensive shoes then go to his "job" in the cyber...

Part 2 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAUYhOFW3ww
- Loto explains how he conducts his romance scams with a (paid) actress and a webcam.
- Back to Paris. Victims begin to unite. Another portrait of another victim from a Nigerian romance scammer.
- Lotto scams explained. In Abidjan at the lawyer building, the janitor explains everything is fake.
- Portrait of Christian, a former scammer who spent 10 months in prison. His family knows nothing (or does not want to talk). Christian accepts to explain his technics.

Part 3 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR4_RkKD1OA
- End of Christian portrait.
- Portrait of a French victim currently in prison. He sent more than 400,000 euros to a scammer (claiming to have an inheritance for him.). Due to unpaid taxes and so on, he is currently in prison so we only see his parents. Even his lawyer has been fooled by the scammer...
- Back to Abidjan, Christian explains how he could pick up money at Western Union without any ID. Just some backshich... From 100 euros sent, 50 leave into other contacts.
- French police at the consulate. They can do not much. They work closely with the police from Abidjan.

Part 4 :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2DPcPeE76E
- Police of Abidjan go to a cyber where some scammers could be located. Only some teens looking at hot sites. Police notes the email addresses on a piece of paper...
- Police department for cyber crimes. 10 people, half the number of computers... No internet.
- Some victims want to fight back ! Yeah. Chris explains the technics. She explains how scammers build fake IDs.
- Those "croque-escrocs" (scambaiters) are organized. She goes to Paris see another one. I show to her my last trophy, I explain rapidly what we do.
- Back to Abidjan, the Police has arrested a scammer ! (This is a must see Smile

)
- Scammers partying all the night.

In December we were shot during more than one hour to explain what we did and why we did it as scambaiters. At the end, only a few minutes. Sad

But it's nevertheless a great report about west Africa scams.
Hope you like it !

Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 12:16 am

Great stuff Very Happy

wow!

Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 1:12 am

Good work there soldier!!!

My command of the French language sucks but if we've got guys like you spreading the word il est bon!!!! clapping

Education is one of the greatest weapons at our disposal.

Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 1:33 am

A great report. But a real shocker with the victim who sent over 400,000 Euros to scammers and ended up going to jail himself for borrowing money he couldn't repay. As Slightly said, education is the best tool we have. This will hopefully open some eyes in France.

Bien fait, félicitations!

Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 1:58 am

Wonderful, Jerome! Thanks for sharing this with us and for the work you do.

happy crowd

Master Baiter Joined: 26 Aug 2008 Posts: 139

Darn, I don't speak French but I really wanted to watch this Sad

Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 9:30 pm

This is dead cool, dead dead cool Smile

Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 10:34 pm

Merci, Jerome pour les clips du vidéo. Ils étaient très interessant et j'ai actuellement comprendu tout dans les vidéos.

I believe I saw something like this happened in Michigan where the mayor borrowed money from the government and gave it to the scammer and was charged with money laundering. I heard people in that city are suffering economically because of him too!

Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 11:09 pm

Jerome, Thanks for posting this and giving a summary for those of use who don't speak French. Education is our best weapon and with your summary was able to follow the story very well, even though I know very little French.

Posted: Mon Mar 02, 2009 12:31 am

Also thank you for allowing me to spread these good news Smile

Posted: Mon Mar 02, 2009 9:09 am

I'm getting more foreign language 419 scam mails, and come across more victims in third world countries nowadays.

I believe that Lads are scouring other sources for victims, so the more places the message is spread the better. If people who don't speak English see a 419 scam for the first time in their own Mother tongue, it can be so much more believable.

Getting the message out on TV has probably saved a large number of victims already, and if it means someone has some doubt in their mind when they get a scam, it will save many in the future.

Great work.

Posted: Mon Mar 02, 2009 3:57 pm

Gomer: You lucky son of.....Can I has some that I can bait them in different languages.