Especially important for those who think are in a online romance with senior military leaders.
— Robert Abrams (@DogFaceSoldier) July 30, 2019
I’m married to the love of my life @ConnieAbrams . News alert: She is alive and well and remains the center of my universe.
Scammers will say anything to steal $$ from you. https://t.co/UEvHk4OgMZ
Hmm, I wonder if North Korea was behind all those emails I got from the Ugandan prince wanting to give me ten million dollars if only I gave my bank information. 😀 https://t.co/eoiqNsc3eL
— Bruce Klingner (@BruceKlingner) March 28, 2019
The people behind these scams are criminals that should be punished, but I am always amazed by how people keep falling for these email scams that are obviously fake:
A mother and her daughter from the United States, who are part of an international group that carries out various inheritance and investment-related email scams, were arrested for fraud by Busan police on Thursday.
The mother, 67, and her daughter, 46, took 97 million won ($87,080) from a 32-year-old Sakhalin Korean, a Russian of Korean descent from Sakhalin Island, surnamed Kim. The money was taken through a total of 16 occasions from March to August of this year in Haeundae District in Busan.
The scam started when Kim received an email in March from who appeared to be a U.S. bank employee. The email read, “One of your distant relatives had passed away and has left 12 billion won to you.” At first, Kim was skeptical but ended up believing the email because the relative’s name written on the email seemed familiar.
Kim replied to the email, “How can I receive the inheritance?”
Soon after, the supposed U.S. bank employee sent another email, recommending Kim a lawyer. When Kim contacted the lawyer from the email, she explained how to receive the money and asked for a commission. Each time the lawyer asked for her payment, Kim wired the fee to a certain bank account in the U.S. Kim received a receipt and an authentication certificate whenever he transferred the fee. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link.
These African scammers sure are creative and their victims seem to get dumber and dumber:
African con artists have found another way to swindle Koreans, this time by selling pieces of regular paper that they claim are actually U.S. banknotes.
In this so-called “black money” or “money wash” scam, unsuspecting victims are persuaded that stacks of banknote-sized black pieces of paper are $100 bills that have been dyed black and smuggled from a U.S. relief fund for Africa. Wide-eyed victims then pay large amounts of money for heaps of black paper and a dye-remover machine or liquid, believing they have purchased U.S. dollars far below the exchange rate.
Last month, a 45-year-old Korean businessman was strolling through Itaewon, a popular neighborhood in Seoul known for its many cafes, bars and foreign restaurants, when a Liberian approached him and said he had a lucrative business proposal. After leading the Korean to a nearby parked van, he fed a piece of black paper into a small machine, and soon the device spit out a crisp $100 bill. The businessman took the bill to a bank, where he was told that it was genuine.
He paid 540 million won ($463,100) for the machine and a sizable portion of black paper. He borrowed the money from associates.
The machine was a simple paper dispenser previously loaded for the demonstration with a genuine banknote. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read the rest at the link, but it seems the victim is just as bad as the con artist if they though they were receiving stolen African aid money.
