The Register - UK
Dutch Police: Advance Fee Fraud: Arrests
January 30, 2004
-- Amsterdam - Dutch police have arrested 52 Nigerian email
scammers at 23 locations in Amsterdam in what is believed
to be the biggest raid of its kind. Several PCs, mobile phones,
false documents and 50,000 in cash were confiscated. Dutch
police believes the criminals sent 100,000 messages to victims
in Japan and the USA. More arrests may follow.
The raid is remarkable not just for its size. For the first
time Dutch police confirmed close ties between Nigerian email
scammers and drug smugglers from the Dutch Antilles.
Drugs traffickers from Latin America have been using the
Caribbean island group as a transit point from Colombia. Up
to 25,000 drugs smugglers are believed to take this transatlantic
route every year.
They are known as bolletjesslikkers (capsule swallowers)
as they swallow tiny drug capsules to hide the drugs from
customs at Amsterdam Airport.
Many drugs and legal experts have urged police to focus on
drug lords rather than arrest the petty criminals who smuggle
the drugs. Those drug lords may well be Nigerians and Colombians,
Dutch police now say. Money taken from victims in e mail scams
is used to finance narcotics smuggling, the Unusual Transactions
Reporting Centre of the Netherlands believes. In 2001 alone
more than 900 Nigerians applied for a Dutch visa from the
Antilles.
Wednesday's crackdown dealt a heavy blow to advance fee fraud
in the Netherlands. Last year a Dutch court sentenced five
African email swindlers to between 300 days and 4.5 years,
after a Swiss lecturer forked over 482,000 dollars on the
promise of a $9 million return. The 52 people arrested Wednesday
could face similar sentences.
Now that Amsterdam is no longer a safe haven for Nigerian
scammers, experts believe they may pack up their bags and
head out elsewhere. The Register already noticed some changes
in the daily floods of congratulatory letters enticing consumers
to buy chances in high-stakes lotteries.
Until recently, most of these letters originated from Amsterdam.
These days most letters are sent through Telefonica from Madrid,
Spain.
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