| The 419 scam has become so ubiquitous in today's | | | | provide funds to secure the prisoner's release. |
| internet-driven society that it has become the | | | | This trick developed into the more refined and famous |
| provenance of late-night show monologues and | | | | Spanish Prisoner con, which operated on the same |
| stand-up routines. In case you're not familiar with the | | | | principle. The con man would show the mark a letter |
| term, the 419 scam is also known as the Nigerian | | | | from a man who claimed to know the whereabouts of |
| scam or the advance-fee scam, and if you've used | | | | a great treasure, but was unable to find it because he |
| e-mail in the past few years, you've probably gotten | | | | was locked away in prison. Should the victim provide |
| plenty of spam mail with the famous subject line, "Your | | | | the finances for the prisoner to bribe his guards, he |
| assistance is needed" and the promise of fast and | | | | would gladly share the treasure with the mark upon his |
| easy cash in exchange for bank account information. | | | | release. Not only does this appeal to greed, but it also |
| The now-worldwide Nigerian scam started off as a | | | | relied on the clandestine appeal of secrecy and |
| small, local fraud, in which the con artist would mail out | | | | adventure. The fantastic romanticism of the scam and |
| letters informing the victim, or mark, that a prince was | | | | the con man's appeals to the mark's honesty and |
| looking to deposit a large amount of money in the | | | | upstanding qualities often precluded the mark telling |
| mark's bank account, and would reward him for helping | | | | anyone else about the trick. |
| get the money out of the country. But mailing out | | | | But what truly made the Nigerian version of this |
| letters was expensive and time-consuming, and didn't | | | | age-old trick such a huge industry was the advent of |
| see the rapid influx of cash to make it anything more | | | | the internet. Modern telecommunications technology |
| than a cottage industry. | | | | and inexpensive internet harvesting software made |
| The trick itself is actually based on a much older one, | | | | the Nigerian fraud-mongers able to inexpensively |
| which goes back at least 300 years. The 18th Century | | | | mass-email potential victims. Even if only a small |
| French criminologist Eugène François | | | | percentage of these people took the bait, the amount |
| Vidocq described a fraud trick called "the Letter from | | | | of money made could be staggering. And it was. In the |
| Jerusalem" in his memoirs. In this confidence trick, the | | | | past fifteen years, the Nigerian scam went from being |
| con man would show the mark a letter from a rich | | | | a small, local fraud scheme which was essentially a |
| person imprisoned in Jerusalem who promised to | | | | cottage industry, to being one of Nigeria's biggest |
| share his wealth with the mark if the mark would help | | | | industries, copied all over the world. |