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New scams focus on familiar target: physicians

Authorities say the best defense for "419" advance-fee scams is skepticism.

By Bob Cook, amednews staff. March 28, 2005.

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It's amazing the number of people who want to share millions with you. Nigerian generals, exiled Liberian government ministers, foreign lottery operators, banks trying to find heirs of someone who died in a car crash -- the offers are all there, in your e-mail, fax machine, answering machine and even the good old-fashioned mailbox. Why do all these people want to share riches with you?

The short answer is: They don't. Law enforcement authorities say they're scammers, participating in a common kind of fraud known as an advance-fee scheme. And its practitioners, authorities say, are increasingly targeting physicians.

Often, advance-fee fraud is referred to as "419" fraud, after the section of the Nigerian criminal code that outlaws such scams. Nigeria is the country that popularized such scams, starting in the early 1980s.

They seek to lure people into sending money or banking information on the pretense that it's needed to share in the booty the scammers, posing as dignitaries or financial agents, say is available. They also might seek to have victims travel to a foreign locale to deliver the information -- which in some cases has resulted in the victim's kidnapping or murder.

Peter Tachauer, a detective sergeant with the City of London police, is investigating a case in which American doctors are receiving letters, e-mails or faxes that go like this: A previously unknown member of your family has been killed in a car crash overseas. You are the only person left who could be related to the deceased, and you might be the sole inheritor of millions of dollars left in an account.