This time it's an assassinated businessman's estate

[Burnaby49]

A new 419 sucker rises to the surface. The link at the bottom is to a decision of the Tax Court of Canada where a Canadian unsuccessfully attempted to get a tax deduction for almost $400,000 he sent off to "Purity Adams" the purported 23 year old daughter of a murdered South African businessman. The scam was that dad left $8.5M sitting in a container in Côte d'Ivoire when he bit the bullet and Purity needed funds to get it out past the corrupt officials in Africa and over to London where she would, I assume, show our hero the appropriate gratitude. She threw herself on the mercy of our Canadian White Knight and he rose to the challenge! Her initial e-mail (taken from the TCC decision) said;

Dear Charles Ruff,

After much consideration and prayer i have decided to tell you all about myself because i believe you can be of assistance to me and my faith and belive in God led me to you i am the only daughter of my father, late MR CHRISTOPHER ADAMS from ZULU,IN Republic of South Africa (SA) I am 23 years of age.

To tell you more about myself,My father was a wealthy Cocoa and Goldmerchant in South Africa before his untimely death. After his business trip to Abidjan Côte d'Ivoire, to negotiate on a Cocoa business. A week after he came back from Abidjan, he was assassinated with my mother by unknown assassins. Wich my mother died, instantly but my father died after five days in the hospitals, on that faithful afternoon.

I didn't know that my father was going to leave me after I had lost my mother. But before he gave up the ghost, it was as if he knew he was going to die. He my father, (MAY HIS SOUL REST IN PERFECT PEACE) he disclosed to me that he deposited the sum of $8,500,000 US Dollars (eigth million five hundred thousand Dollars) in a security company in Abidjan,Côte d'Ivoire. That the money was meant for his cocoa business he wanted to invest in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire through, according to my late father he deposited the money in a trunk box but declared it as Ivory, and family belongings. He simple handed me the key of the consignment box and the document covering it which is the certificate of deposit and the agreement bond made with the security company, and instructed me to seek for a life time investment abroad.

Right now I am in Abidjan COTE D'IVOIRE to locate where the security company is and I have succeded in locating the security company here in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire and also confirmed the consignment box with most honest and confidential. I want you to assist me in clearing this fund and transfer it to your country as a beneficiary of the fund, and also use it for an investment purpose. I am honourably seeking for your assistance in the following ways.

(1) To assist me to clear this fund from the security company and transfer it to your country.

(2) To serve as the guardian of this fund since I am a young girl of (23)yrs. Now I am siliciting for your assistance to help in lifting this money in your country because this is my only hope in life.

Now permit me to ask these few questions:-

1. Can you honestly help me as your best Friend?

2. Can I completely trust you?

Awaiting anxiously to hear from you so that we can discuss the modalities of this transaction.

Miss Purity Adams.

Our dupe jumped in with both feet, replied almost immediately and, within 90 minutes had received this;

And bear in mind that this transaction is 100% risk free as you can see to it. And the most important thing is that the security company here in Abidjan does not even know the real content of the (BOX AS MONEY). It was deposited by my late father as artcraft or family treasures such as gold and some others estate documents of my late father...

Also after this fund has entered into your care I and my younger brother has mapped out 5% for any expenses made during the time of transaction and 10% is for you and your willingness of the transaction also we have decided to leave you with the whole money after the transaction successful to your care. I will want you to assure me that you will help and invest this fund wisely and you will also be share holder in company for 10years if there will be any change as I am 23years of age.

The initial request for cash was $6,000. He sent them $7,000 just to be on the safe side. Once they knew the harpoon was in deep they gave a story about venal customs agents at the Abijan airport who would open the container up unless they got USD$300,000. So he sent it. He started getting concerned when they immediately asked for another $132,825.

The Tax Court case rested on whether or not or not the judge could conclude that the dupe had a reasonable belief that the story was true. The judge inconsiderately picked apart the story pointing out all the red flags that the appellant ignored on the way to being scammed. Little things like this bothered the judge;

Why did the home page for Optimum Security Service (which was a security company located in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire) include pictures taken in an area where there was snow? There were also errors in the text on this homepage. The text was written in English, except that instead of the English word "address", the French word "adresse" was used. As well the following line also appears on this page:

DIFFERENTS DEPARTMENTS

So he lost on a "common sense" analysis.




http://decision.tcc-cci.gc.ca/en/2012/2 ... cc105.html

[notorial dissent]

What I want to know, is how someone with that kind of money could actually be that dumb, and that naive? And where can I find one? And he actually thought he could take it off his taxes? OY!

[Burnaby49]

What I want to know, is how someone with that kind of money could actually be that dumb, and that naive? And where can I find one? And he actually thought he could take it off his taxes? OY!

If you read the entire decision you'll see it was a reasonably close call. In the past being defrauded meant no chance at tax recovery because no possibility of income, no matter how small. This judge took a more sympathetic view and pretended the guy was actually trying to make income for his legal business (he was a lawyer if you can believe it). However the judge concluded that the scam had to be at least plausible. This one shouldn't have fooled a dim twelve year old.

[Kestrel]

I know two other lawyers who were scammed in the same way, including being gullible enough to send up-front money and personally fly to South Africa twice. The whole thing could have been easily disproven at the onset if someone had taken the time to make a quick Google search to authenticate the original letter (a client brought it in). But these two foolish lawyers were arrogant enough to believe they could tell the difference between a scam and a real "offer" just by eyeballing it.

Skipping the 15-minute web-search cost them a lot of time and money, and ultimately that arrogant careless attitude cost them their whole law practice.

But I think they did succeed in deducting the scam collection expenses on their tax return.