Gangs

by Tony Thompson

  Refusing to be comforted by the staff, Rollings curtly demanded his key and returned to his room. Half an hour later, ‘There was a terrific bang. Everyone in the hotel heard it and we all ran about knocking on all the doors trying to find out where it had come from. For a few minutes there was chaos, people everywhere, but then when we got to David’s room there was no reply.’

  Inside, Rollings was sprawled on the bed with a single bullet-hole in the back of his head. The room was neat and tidy – there had been no attempt to rob him. No gun was found in the room and his killer is now thought to have slipped away during the initial flurry of activity that followed the gunshot. They have never been caught.

  A few weeks earlier an American finance consultant by the name of Gerald Scruggs had also visited Lagos, staying in the five-star Sheraton in the city’s suburbs to oversee what he thought was a legitimate multi-million-dollar business opportunity that had fallen into his lap by way of a wealthy Nigerian lawyer.

  Once Scruggs arrived, the lawyer, whom he had never met before, kept demanding more and more cash to ‘sweeten’ the final deal. After handing over thousands of dollars, Scruggs began to suspect that the glittering opportunity was made of fool’s gold and refused to pay any more.

  When they found him, just outside the hotel grounds, he had been necklaced – a car tyre had been strung about his neck, doused with petrol, then set alight. As with Rollings, his killers have never been caught.

  In the past ten years at least seventeen people have been killed in Nigeria while attempting to recover lost monies. Anxious to avoid becoming the next victim I had little desire to travel to Lagos, but having planned a trip to Amsterdam anyway, I found myself intrigued by the idea of being able to meet face to face one of the 419 fraudsters targeting the UK.

  Having read through Tao’s original email a few times over the course of a week, I sit down at my computer and type a reply. I explain that I am the director of a small but profitable paper-handling company based in central London and that I’d be happy to help him in any way I can. It is less than twenty-four hours before I hear from him again.

  Dear Tony,

  I received your email. Thank you for your lovely kindness. I would like to take you back to the first message I sent to you and elaborate the kind of help I need from you.

  First Step: As you must have read from my first message how my father was killed by Angolan Government troops because of his position. Due to this reason my mother advised me to relocate to the Netherlands where I am currently seeking asylum for safety reason and look for a trustworthy person who can handle the beneficiary to the said consignment and also arrange for a profitable investment.

  Second Step: This fund was deposited in one of the private security companies here in the Netherlands by my late father, and as the next of kin, all the relevant documents have been passed to me. But due to the crises in my country and also my political status in Europe, I am not able to operate a bank account. For this reason I will submit the power of attorney and change of ownership to you in order for you to claim the consignment.

  Third Step: You should know that we are taking you as our foreign business partner and also as a manager for all our further transactions.

  Fourth Step: All the various accounts where the money will be deposited after claiming it from the security company will be opened by you in your name or your company name for security reasons.

  Fifth Step: After I submit the documents to you and a copy to the security company you will be invited to come to the Netherlands branch office to sign the release of the consignment. Please send me your private telephone number in order to give you the other information.

  Best Regards and God bless,

  TAO SAVIMBI

  This time I reply immediately, sending Tao my telephone number and telling him that, by a happy coincidence, I am planning to travel to Amsterdam on business in the next few weeks (though I neglect to mention that it is to research other chapters of this book). I tell him how excited I am about being able to help him with his difficulties and how much I look forward to meeting him. The next day Tao writes to me again:

  Dear Tony,

  Thank you for your co-operation concerning this transaction and I hope that you will be visiting the Netherlands very soon. Please try and send me your international passport number in order for me to meet with my advocate to write the power of attorney and change of the ownership to your name, since we are entrusting you as our overseas business partner.

  After submit the power of attorney and change of ownership you can open conversation with the security company as our overseas business partner nominate to become the rightful beneficiary to the said fund.

  Within the shortest time God will join us together as one family.

  Extend my warm greetings to your family.

  Best Regards and God Bless,

  TAO SAVIMBI

  I spend the next few days away from my office on the trail of coke-dealers in the north of England and when I return there is a voicemail message from Tao on my phone. I play it back and note that he sounds genuinely distraught, wondering why I have not yet sent my passport details. His situation, he explains, is getting more desperate by the day and I am his last hope.

  I make a note of the number that he gives me but decide not to call him back right away. Instead I decide to get some expert advice on just what to expect if I arrange to go and meet Tao. I call up the offices of the National Criminal Intelligence Service and request a one-to-one briefing on the current state of advance-fee fraud and the Amsterdam connection.

  A few days later, in a bare meeting room in one of the dozen or so buildings close to the river Thames that form the frontline of the battle against British organised crime, I am introduced to ‘Duncan’, who proceeds to give me a crash course on everything there is to know about the 419 gangs.

  ‘A lot of the people who get these letters and emails, they treat the whole thing as a joke and hit the delete button or throw them in the bin right away,’ Duncan explains. ‘They think, How could anyone be so stupid as to fall for this? Well, I have met the people who do. Some of them are stupid, others just naive and some are plain greedy. All of them are embarrassed about what has happened to them.’

  Duncan’s figures show that, in 2002, British victims of 419 frauds who contacted NCIS had lost a total of £8 million. One man was fleeced of £1.4 million, another of more than £400,000. Three people were cheated out of £300,000 each while five more lost £250,000 each.

  Shocking though these figures are, they represent just the tip of the iceberg. Dozens more victims would have reported their losses direct to one of the UK’s forty-three police forces and hundreds of others would have kept quiet and said nothing at all. Duncan suspects that a significant number of those who get involved are criminals themselves and the money lost is the proceeds of other frauds or drug-trafficking.

  ‘When it comes to those behind the scams, you’re talking about extremely clever people. When they are dealing with their potential victims they have mastered the art of coming across as trustworthy, well mannered and well educated. The fact is that the vast majority of Nigerians living in the UK are honest and respectable: these criminals trade off the good name of their community.

  ‘The Amsterdam thing is relatively new. A few years ago the goal was to get people to travel out to Lagos, but after a few cases of murder and kidnap many of the fraudsters realised that it was much harder to convince their victims to travel to what was seen as a dangerous third-world country. Few people have any such qualms about places like Paris, Amsterdam, Dublin, or even parts of South Africa, but the truth is these meetings can be dangerous, regardless of where they take place. All the indications are that incidents of kidnapping are becoming increasingly common.’

  Duncan tells me he spends an increasing amount of his time guiding victims of 419 scams through a series of email and phone exchanges with the fraudsters and then accompanying them to a face-to-face meeting,
usually in South Africa. There, working alongside the local police, the meeting is allowed to continue as long as it takes for the fraudsters to incriminate themselves before they are arrested.

  It’s a slow, high-risk way of dealing with the gangs and even when the suspects are caught, there is often little chance of getting back any money that has already been lost, but Duncan believes it sends an important message to them. The focus on South Africa is at least partly responsible for the increasing number of scammers basing themselves in Europe.

  ‘So far as the latest trends are concerned, the fraudsters just get cleverer and their techniques get ever more refined. Instead of making up names at random, they are starting to use the names of real people – often staff at prominent banks or law firms – working on the presumption that people might go as far as to run the name through Google to see if the person is bona fide but are unlikely to phone them up at work, especially when the emails make it clear that all communication needs to be kept confidential.

  ‘There are cases where the fraudsters will send out newspaper and magazine clippings to back up parts of their story about the origins of the money they need moved out of the country. More than once, the gangs have actually managed to get stories placed in genuine publications.

  ‘When it comes to the kind of documentation that gets sent out, some of it is first class. It used to be the case that the letters were full of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors but they have really smartened up their act. They can produce government and bank letterheads with impressive-looking seals and stamps that are virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. The cottage industry that exists to support this kind of forgery is an industry in itself.

  ‘We recently stopped a Nigerian leaving the country with a single suitcase, opened it up and found that it was full of old travel passes for the London Underground, bus tickets, stuff like that. It was all completely worthless and it took us a while to figure out what it was for. Basically in Nigeria the stuff is like gold dust. When people go to meet them wherever, they can make out they’ve been travelling around, that they bought things or lived in certain places. As far as the victims are concerned, it all adds to the feeling that the people they are dealing with are genuine.

  ‘So far as the reality of you going to Amsterdam is concerned, a number of things might happen. At present around half a dozen people travel over there each week after responding to 419 emails. Some of them get picked up and driven out to somewhere in the suburbs where they are taken into the basement of a shop. If they don’t hand over any money right away, they get put under a bit of pressure until they do.

  ‘I’ve had calls from people who say they were told to wait in their hotel room and that they waited all day and no one turned up. Or that when the people turned up they felt a bit intimidated so they gave them all the money they had or allowed themselves to be driven to a cashpoint or bank to empty their account.

  ‘The bottom line is that the 419 fraudsters are only interested in making money, but violence is not unknown.’

  The following afternoon, my phone rings and I answer it absent-mindedly. ‘Hello, Tony, this is Tao.’ He sounds genuinely distraught. He asks why I have not yet sent my passport number. Time is running out. Without it, he explains, he cannot put together the power-of-attorney. For a few brief seconds I forget the whole thing is a scam and find myself feeling genuinely sorry for him. I apologise and tell him I will do so immediately.

  It is at this point, desperate to win my sympathy, that Tao recounts the story of the death of his father and I return to my senses. I manage to stop myself laughing out loud and instead sound sympathetic to his plight. I promise to forward my passport details by email, and explain that immediately afterwards I will book my flight to Amsterdam. I tell him the reason for the delay is that my company has just won a new contract and that I’m having to take on new staff and expand. At the other end of the line I am sure I can hear Tao’s eyes widening, his hands rubbing: more business for me means more money for him to steal.

  He gives me a new telephone number and also a code name, which he asks me to use whenever I try to get hold of him. ‘When you call me, say the name Omega and I will respond Delta. If I do not answer Delta, hang up and call back.’ Tao fails to explain the need for such a scheme but I later learn that rivalry exists even within the 419 gangs, and that if one member finds a likely mug, he will often try to exclude others working from the same office in order to keep more of the profits for himself.

  The desire to cut costs means the scammers often share telephone lines and sometimes even Internet cafés, forcing them to work far more closely with one another than they would ideally like. ‘419s are such a popular thing in Nigeria right now,’ said one high-ranking member of the Nigerian Secret Service task force, charged with investigating the schemes. ‘On any given day, you may have a hundred people, ranging from amateur crooks to organised criminals, all using the same Internet café to send out 419 emails.’

  I jumble up a few of the numbers on my passport – I can always claim it was a genuine mistake – and email them off to Tao. There are, according to Duncan, two possible motives for him requesting them. The best-case scenario for me is that he simply wants to make the documentation appear more legitimate and will therefore include my details on the power-of-attorney he is drawing up. The worst is that he has a contact who buys passport numbers for use in putting together forgeries. In either case it will only be a matter of time before he asks to see the real thing.

  Two days later I receive scanned versions of some seemingly genuine legal documents, signed by Tao, granting me power-of-attorney over the funds lodged in Amsterdam. The email explains that Tao has sent a copy to the finance company and that they are preparing a certificate of deposit in my name, allowing me to claim the money as my own.

  To my great relief, the email goes on to make the first request for money, something I had expected to happen far sooner. Tao mentions casually that when I arrive in Amsterdam I should have with me a copy of the power-of-attorney, a copy of the certificate of deposit (which he will give me on arrival), a copy of my passport (so the number can be checked against the documents) and the sum of $14,200.

  The money, he explains, is to cover the ‘demurrage’, a kind of interest payment that has accrued because the money has been with the company far longer than was originally intended. ‘I tried to negotiate with them to see if they can allow you to secure the consignment before making this payment but was categorically told that this is not permitted because of the company insurance policy. My dear friend, it was never my intention to ask you for any financial assistance but you are now the only person who can help. As a refugee I earn only a hundred and fifty dollars as a monthly allowance, which is not even enough to feed myself. Please God, I trust and have faith that you will do everything in your power to find the money so we can make this deal.’

  I don’t want to appear too eager so I write back and tell Tao that I had already booked a flight to Amsterdam but I was surprised to learn that I would need to bring so much cash with me. I tell him I will make inquiries and that, God willing, we will be able to proceed.

  Three days later, having spoken to Tao and been told that the certificate of deposit is ready, and having convinced him that I should be able to get the money wired to me by a business associate once I’m in the Netherlands, I arrive at Luton airport in plenty of time to board my one o’clock flight to Amsterdam.

  My plan is simple: I want to have one and possibly two meetings with Tao and the gang, stall them about getting hold of the fourteen grand, then get the hell out of Dodge before they realise they’re not going to get anything out of me. But, having promised them a bumper pay-day, I know I’m playing with fire.

  As my flight begins its descent into Schiphol airport, I can’t help worrying that the fake passport number I gave to Tao may have been a dead giveaway. At the back of my mind is the inescapable fact that in every case I have examined involving violence
or murder, the trigger was the victim’s refusal to play along and pay up at least some of the money when asked. If the gang runs out of patience or, worse still, discovers that, far from being a new source of income, I’m just a writer trying to expose their activities, I’m going to be in big trouble.

  CHAPTER TEN

  According to the Dutch anti-fraud authorities there are around forty gangs made up of around three hundred Nigerians actively running 419 schemes in Amsterdam at any one time, using it as a base from which to arrange meetings with gullible victims from all over Europe.

  Although Tao has repeatedly told me that he is in Amsterdam, there is no guarantee that he will actually be the man waiting for me when I get off the plane. The telephone numbers he provided may have Netherlands codes but even this means nothing. The latest digital technology means that calls can be diverted in an instant to anywhere in the world. Some of the gangs take advantage of this to make even more money by linking their numbers to premium-rate call lines. Even the most innocent inquiries can cost the hapless victim fifty pounds per minute in charges.

  Instead of meeting the victims themselves many of the heads of the larger fraud gangs have team members in cities across the world who act as intermediaries. These subordinates often work hand in hand with others, who are introduced as high-flying bankers, lawyers or financial consultants but are in fact other members of the same gang. ‘It’s a classic good-cop bad-cop strategy,’ the man from NCIS told me. ‘It means one of them can sympathise about the fact everything is going wrong while the other makes increasingly desperate demands for cash. They’ll pretend not to be good friends and play off one another but you’ll be left with the distinct feeling that, afterwards, they’ll all get together and have a good laugh while discussing their next move.’