This may come as something of a shock to you, but that Nigerian Prince whose email found its way to your spam folder might not be as legit as he seems on paper.
Though we laugh now, the now-ages old desperate-prince-trying-to-offload-squillions scam still apparently manages to pull in millions of dollars annually thanks to gullible rubes. And now, thanks to an 18-month investigation, one of the – extremely white – faces behind the scam has been arrested in Louisiana, of all places.
Cops in Slidell, Louisiana – a town across the lake from New Orleans – arrested 67-year-old Michael Neu on suspicion of being a go-between for an international operation of “Nigerian Prince” scammers.
Neu was charged with a staggering 269 counts of wire fraud and money laundering as a result of the arrest, with local TV hilariously describing him as being “neither Nigerian, nor a Prince.”
‘Nigerian prince’ scammer was 67-year-old from Louisiana, police say https://t.co/lrXXMyeuPU pic.twitter.com/mUjOMVrD6D
— NBC News (@NBCNews) January 1, 2018
For those of you in need of a quick history lesson, the Nigerian Prince scam works by crims sending out emails claiming to be royalty of some non-descript African nation, assuring you that you are, in fact, the descendent of a dead king who is therefore entitled to a slice of the fortune. If only you just pay a small transfer fee first. The scam seems ridiculous in theory, but the reality is it’s been an extremely spenno grift to a lot of people over the years.
Slidell’s police chief Randy Fandal (great name) issued a timely warning for people to remain vigilant in the face of slightly more sophisticated scamming attempts.
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Never give out personal information over the phone, through e-mail, cash checks for other individuals, or wire large amounts of money to someone you don’t know. 99.9 percent of the time, it’s a scam.
‘Course if you’re hip enough to the whole thing then scam emails are simply an open window to fucking with people to the nth degree, like comedian James Veitch here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QdPW8JrYzQ
There’s an argument to be made there about scamming yourself out of time, but that’s really only as valuable as you want it to be, after all.
