Spain cuffs Wi-Fi leeching lottery scammers

Spanish police have arrested ten Nigerians suspected of running a spam-fuelled lottery scam that raked in €19,000 ($28,000) in illicit earnings over three months. Investigators say the gang, based in Malaga in southern Spain, piggybacked the wireless internet access of a neighbour to pump out false claims that recipients had …

[Graham Lockley]

Wages of Sin

10 people earned $28,000 between them over 3 months ? Wow thats a real incentive to lead a life of crime !!

[John Sanders]

15,000 euros

€15,000 can buy you a lot of "pescaito frito" and "cerveza" at Malaga's seaside boulevar, but it isn't "El Gordo" scam :-)

"El Gordo scam" goes to that guy on the french finantial institution...

[Mr Fuzzy]

@ Wages of Sin

To be fair that's the sort of scam that can be run in spare time. At a spot over $900/month each that's a pretty good return on what is essentially an evening job.

[Anonymous Coward]

comment

well if i got one of these asking to for my to pay a fee then i would tell em to take it out of the winnings :)

its worrying the number of people that fall for the, you have won ££££ but first you must send us ££

surely emails like that should start ringing alarm bells!

[Andy Worth]

To be fair....

...you've got to be a fucking idiot if you fall for a scheme like this....."oh you've won 20 million but we need €1250 to process your win"...........

I have never heard of any legitimate lottery or similar that requires a payment to release funds. The people who fall for it can only be motivated and blinded by greed at the time, in which case the greedy bastards deserve to be scammed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sympathy for the (brain) dead

I've no sympathy, none, for the spanners who fall for these scams. The problem is the "collateral damage" in terms of spam volumes...

[TrishaD]

Predictable

Reactions from everyone so far.....

Like all confidence tricks, this particular little scam relied chiefly on a degree of greed and naivety from the 'marks'.

But - many of these scams expoit other human frailties - I've lost count of the number of news stories I've read in the personal finance pages about elderly and confused individuals parting with their hard-earned savings as a result of a phone call from some boilet house scammer selling worthless shares. If you're short of money and not over-bright, these things must be terribly tempting. Because confidence tricks dont just rely on greed, they rely on telling people what they want to hear.

I've seen responses to a couple of recent articles on here that can be summarised as 'well, it was all their fault and they got what they deserved'. The function of the Law is to protect the vulnerable from jackals like this.

If I had to live in the ultra-Darwininian world that some posters seem to live in, I'd carry a gun in my handbag.....

[Badg3r]

duh!

I work on the basis that I have to enter a lottery to win it, so have consequently never won the Dutch or Spanish lottery, even though many emails have told me I have.

[Anonymous Coward]

@ Trisha D

It's not an ultra Darwinian world, simply a Darwinian one. The rules of natural selection apply with as much certainty as the rules of physics. If you're stupid/naive/frail enough to fall for this type of scam you've just learned the hard way. These laws do little to protect anyone, those people who were ripped off aren't going to be reimbursed and there is an army of scammers out there who will continue to exploit the stupid, who will continue to fall for the same tricks.

[Mike Kern]

My long lost uncle

I, too, am disturbed by the naiveté of so many on the net today when it comes to these lottery schemes. Their own greed has sent them running into quicksand!

Fortunately, for me the temptation is not so great since I recently learned that a long-lost uncle of mine has died, leaving me a very sizable inheritance. I wish to publicly thank an unnamed government official of Nigeria for his honesty in coming to me with news of my dear uncle's death. Through his extraordinary efforts in facilitating a veritable quagmire of paperwork and bureaucratic red tape, I will soon be rich beyond my wildest dreams!

Apparently, my uncle was personally responsible for the freezing of terrorist funds in that nation and was socking some of it away on this side (I'm told this is perfectly legal in their country). My government friend is working diligently to help me in exchange for a small cut of the inheritance and all I've had to do so far is pay for all the forms and fees associated with the account. What a deal! The $15,673 I've spent so far is a trivial investment considering I'm about to earn millions!

Anyway, enough about me! I still can't believe how greedy people are and the scams they fall for!

[Schultz]

Why

do people organize cheap scams like that when they can <EARN BIG $$$ FAST> and get <extra money fast and easy> like every honest email user? Holy Bill diapproves.