Dear All
Since giving you all my first received responses, I have had more. Special thanks to Cath Maloney and Beth MacNeice.
Following advice received, I first tried to forward the email to the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NICIS). They sent back the automated reply attached below (incidentally, in an unidentifiable attachment which I was rather worried about opening). In essence this tells you to send it on to the dedicated officer in your local police force. So, I phoned the Lothian and Borders Police and was told to look at their website. This had nothing that was helpful at all (for example, not one email contact) so I have printed out the original email and sent it by post to Police HQ. No doubt it will find its way into the WPB.
I then sent the email to [log in to unmask] . They replied saying they could do nothing without full headers, so my advice is that you discover the full headers before passing items on to the server.
It may be that the best advice is simply to ignore and delete such messages, although that does feel rather defeatist.
Happy Easter all.
Rosemary Hayes
WAOCS - Automatic Reply
Thank you for contacting the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS). The West African Organised Crime Section acts as the national co-ordination point for unsolicited Advance Fee Fraud communications received by UK nationals.
As a result of the volume of such communications NCIS are not able to respond to each recipient individually and therefore request that you seek to make contact with your local constabulary fraud squad or commercial crime unit. Each constabulary throughout the UK has a dedicated officer to whom you should forward such aforementioned communications under the title of West African Organised Crime. Do not under any circumstance reply to the unknown fraudsters responsible for sending out these communications. They are professional, organised and effective criminals.
If you have entered into communication with the fraudsters and thereafter either sent money or met with them then please contact NCIS at [log in to unmask] or by telephone on 020 7238 8012.
If you are a non-UK citizen NCIS urge you to make contact with the National Law Enforcement Agency in your country who leads investigations into Advance Fee Fraud.
In the USA you should contact [log in to unmask]
In South African you should contact [log in to unmask]
In Australia you should contact [log in to unmask]
NCIS have established direct lines of communication with law enforcement agencies in the aforementioned countries as well as with European and West African countries.
Sources of information about Advance Fee Fraud are available for research via the Internet and can be found at the following sites:
www.ncis.gov.uk
www.usss.treas.gov
www.nigerianfraudwatch.org
http://home.rica.net/alphae/419coal
You may also want to consider forwarding a copy of the e-mail you have received to the Internet Service Provider (ISP) from where it has originated. These e-mails to the ISP's should be addressed to abuse@'the ISP's name'
For example [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask]
By this method the ISP's will be able to quickly terminate the accounts that abuse their systems.
Advance Fee Fraud (or 419 as it is known colloquially) is an international problem that requires international co-operation to combat the unknown fraudsters responsible. The West African Organised Crime Section at NCIS constantly strives to impact upon this criminality through the introduction of innovative and dynamic techniques designed to disrupt and prevent the activities of the criminals involved. International co-operation with law enforcement and partner agencies is an essential part of this process.
Thank you for your support.
