AMSTERDAM IS THE CENTRE OF NIGERIAN SPAM NETWORK

South-east Amsterdam is the centre of a worldwide network of Nigerian con artists. They promise you money, lots of it, via email. Those who take the bait, could end up in a fake branch of the ABN Amro bank.

The Netherlands is the centre of Nigerian scam operations and Amsterdam is its headquarters. Nigerian fraudsters regard the Netherlands as a safe haven. The police are seen as soft and, moreover, south-east Amsterdam is home to a close-knit African community making it easy to go to ground. It is also conveniently near to Schiphol airport.

At a seminar organised by the Centre of Information and Research on Organised Crime in Amsterdam this week, Yvette Schoenmakers, a police academy criminologist, presented the preliminary results of research on Nigerian criminal networks in the Netherlands. This was carried out in conjunction with the research firm Beke which advises on criminal policy.

According to Schoenmakers, the first Nigerian swindlers started using the Netherlands as a base back in 1990. The police were unaware of what was going on because the scam was not directed at Dutch citizens. Most of the victims were foreigners, often American, some of whom lost thousands or even hundreds of thousands of Euros. read more (nrc.nl)

more features

October 20, 2008