Anatomy of 419 groups

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Not quite a Newb Joined: 07 May 2007 Posts: 44

Here's a thought from a n00b: perhaps it would be useful to provide some means in the forum to systematize the various lad groups a bit. Maybe create a forum section with subsections for origin countries wherein ba1ters could try to distinguish between various groups, and also a section for the pickup guys in various cities. It would be very useful for arranging for their arrests, if possible, and also to lend more credibility when posing as guymen chopping their $$ - e.g. "hey, remember when I chopped your $$ last november in Amsterdam? yeah the $$ from mugu X, you were using the name Y"

The idea came to me when I was looking in the archive for incidents in Zurich and found out that, quite possibly, the "diplomat" that waited for me in Zurich -
http://media.putfile.com/thunder-on-yo-family
http://media.putfile.com/Confused-diplomat-in-Zur1ck

may be the same guy that Deacon Blue exchanged pleasantries with as - http://forum.419eater.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=487586&highlight=yousf+ahmed+zurich#487586
("Thunder fire on your family" is an insult he used with Deacon and over the phone with me)

and also the same one that persephone and Equinoxe discussed with as , also in Zurich -
http://media.putfile.com/Usman-and-Jeff
http://media.putfile.com/Round-2---making-friends

What do you think?

Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 7:01 pm

It is a very nice idea, but I am afraid that it will be impossible to archive. Lads are not a couple of hundred guys, there are thousands of them. Have a look in Amsterdam: more lads than tourists Sad

Plus, lads do not always work in a group. Sure, they can have connections sometimes to other lads and some of them are well organised. I have a feeling though that the majority of them have scamming as a side activity (probably next to other 'easy' ways to get their money).

Plus, they use different names, different formats, different fake IDs for several scams. One love scammer may very well run some fake cheques scams as well. They have several email addresses, making it impossible to map them out so to speak. The result will be less than workable.

Baiting Guru Joined: 03 Mar 2006 Posts: 7103 Location: Yes

^^^^ Lazy! Wink

No, Pers speaks the truth. There are very few ways to corroborate that you're dealing with the same lad -- even if IP addresses match up closely.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 07 May 2007 Posts: 44

I think that, for instance, the pickup guys can't be that many. They have to have knowledge of the cities they're into, they have to be very experienced, they have to be a bit sophisticated - this one was obviously much better than the lads back in Africa, and besides, the most important element is trust - the proles that do the hard work in Africa have to have a trusty contact in Europe that WILL give them their hard-earned share, so it's unlikely that there will be much mobility within a certain group of "partners" in any given city.

You also have to consider that there surely are hierarchies in place, that the top dog in a group doesn't want his drivers or muscle guys to get a bigger piece of the pie than he allows them to, and finally, that they can't be too mobile - traveling costs money and they don't get that much of them too often, I think. So identifying the pickup guys should not be too great a difficulty - especially if we have the calls recorded and can compare voices and accents.

Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 7:13 pm

^
2: Greedy
3: Stupid
4: Lazy, Greedy & Stupid << These are my favourite. Wink

419Eater is my life Joined: 11 Jun 2005 Posts: 344

The only way I can see to map it, so to speak, would be if you could find if theyre independent or working for an oga, who their oga is, etc. And then there's if they occassionaly work with other buddies, buddy's buddies, connections made through their oga, etc. Not details that are readily available.

Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 10:22 pm

Interesting ideas, valachus

But I don't think it works the way you think. Although most 419 scammers are in Nigeria, there are tens of thousands in other countries, with major concentrations in places like London, Amsterdam, Madrid, Toronto and Johannesburg. Also, except for catcher-oga relationships, they don't work in rigid hierarchies - it's more like a complex social network. If a scam requires a pickup by an associate in (say) London, they look through their network, and there is no shortage of candidates. Rounding up all the 419 scammers in (say) Amsterdam would be quite an undertaking.

The above statements are only true of Nigerian scammers, of course. Scammers from other countries adopt different modalities.