Offshore Scams

• Trading Program Scams
• Prime Bank Guarantee, Letter of Credit, Trading and Other Financial Scams
• VIP Traders – Alert
• Offshore Seminars
• Panama Real Estate Scams
• Panama Real Estate Purchase Contracts - Scam Alert
• Nigerian Scams
• Forum Scams
• Panama Foundation Scams
• Nigerian Inheritance Scam Emails
• Nigerian Scam Emails
• Offshore Newsletters, Books and Guides
• Offshore Expat Forums
• Identity Document Scams
• Scam Expose: W. G. Hill
• Top Ten Offshore Banks
• Large Program Payout Scams
• Lists of Top Ten Retirement Countries
• Online Virtual Gold and Currency Services
• Offshore Corporate Agent Scams
• Second Passport Scams and Fraud

Offshore Seminars

We do not do such seminars and suggest you do not attend any such seminars if the subject matter has anything to do with offshore asset protection, offshore trusts, offshore banking, offshore foundations, or anything offshore financial related.

In Panama jokes are often made about these seminars since a lot of them take place in Panama. You do not know who the other people are attending these seminars and it is common to see people filming the attendees with digital cameras and communicating with each other using microphones up their shirt sleeves. Are these people seminar security people, hotel security or something else, we do not know? For all we know someone could be planning to blackmail or kidnap seminar attendees. Kidnapping and blackmail are rare occurrences in Panama but a lot of these seminars take place in Mexico and other hi-risk countries. Think we are kidding, think again. Do you know why you see all these Nigerian financial scams in your email? Because they work, that’s why.

We would not suggest to our clients that they attend any of these seminars. The price for the seminars are enough to hire a asset protection law firm and have them do your formations as well and then have some left over for a new plasma screen TV. The other attendees will often be shills trying to draw you into some phony business deal which is going to be a scam. The con man impersonates being a seminar attendee so you think hey this guy spent $7500.00 to come here, he must be rich while he is nothing more than a con man splitting with the house (the house is the seminar promoters).

These seminars have people touting returns on their managed investment accounts of over 100% per year. If the guy is so good why does he need to attend these seminars and who is doing the trading while he is running around doing seminars several times a year as in what if the market does a major shift while he is at a seminar, see what I mean.

The prices charged for services like corporations are usually three to five times higher than what they should be. Often times what is being touted are crazy trust related scams or third party banking scams that usually have a bad ending. The seminar producers, the speakers and sellers of goods and services are not attorneys, there is no attorney client privilege and these seminar attendees who purchase from them trust these people with all the pieces of their financial life all based on the credibility of giving a seminar. Any promoter with an extensive criminal record can hire a hotel, print flyers, buy mailing lists, send out brochures, charge $5000 or more for a week and give a seminar. These seminars have a big hype with testimonies, claims, etc. all in a very controlled atmosphere, they control your atmosphere. Here is this guy up on a stage speaking to hundreds of people – he or she must know what they are talking about, he sells tapes, book etc. so he has to be great. Lawyers that are good and effective at asset protection don´t have the time to go around doing seminars. They have ways of protecting clients assets that they are not going to get on a stage and broadcast to the seminar audience or publish in a book, newsletter, etc.

Most seminar producers publish a newsletter to get credibility and a newsletter does not make you an expert. Anyone with a computer can write a newsletter. Folks these are highly skilled marketing people who know how to promote seminars, sell products and services. Most of what they sell is poorly put together untested asset protection scam- structures designed to get you to spend large amounts of money. These structures are usually based in a jurisdiction that used to be worthy of asset protection before 9/11 and the attendees do not know the jurisdiction passed new laws ruining their older privacy and secrecy laws. Their primary motive is getting attendees to pay big bucks to attend and buy things from the speakers who kick back to them. Over the years we have heard of many big seminar promoters getting jailed in different countries for a variety of offenses with fraud being a common thread. Usually it is only a matter of time until they have an encounter with law enforcement in some country. To hook the people into attending their seminars they tout big claims which of course can not be substantiated. If it is too good to be true, it’s not true.

So save your seminar money and retain a good asset protection law firm that is going to protect your assets more effectively and lawfully. Someday if trouble comes knocking on your door who you going to call the seminar promoter or a competent law firm in the jurisdiction where your assets are? We rest our case.

Nigerian Scams

We get a number of phone calls and emails from people who are stating they are going to come into a large amount of money and wish the money to be sent offshore and thus wish to set up offshore structures and bank accounts. When you deal with offshore asset protection clients long enough you get to know what a “real” client sounds like. You can tell by the nature of their concerns, the questions they ask, the sophistication level, their demeanor etc. what a so called “real” client sounds like. These people never sound like a “real” client. You would be amazed at the amount of clients that contact us talking about an inheritance from a dead relative. I ask them if the situation has anything to do with Nigeria and of course it does. There is always a Nigerian link in there somewhere. These people are so sold on the scam half the time we can not convince them they are being scammed. In their mind they have locked in the $25,000,000 they are promised and will not let go. We tell them do not send these people any money at all, delete their emails, forget about it, etc. They don’t let go. What they do not see is all the other people that have called us with the same or a similar story and never once did we ever hear from someone who received the money. These scammers have government documents, bank documents, photos of people they say are involved, all sorts of documentation, all forged and counterfeit but authentic looking.

The scam starts with an email or fax. Some plot is created like money needs to be gotten out of Nigeria or now we see South Africa popping up too. There might be a child that needs to be taken care of and you for some seemingly good reason have been selected to be entrusted with millions of dollars to take care of him or her. There may talk about oil contracts worth millions that are available. There might be millions left to you in a will and they will even know all about your deceased relative. They may try to get you into an illegal money laundering scheme, of course you can’t launder non-existent funds. Then comes money requests to have funds released, bonds, taxes, bank release fees, bank charges, bribe fees, advance fees, pay liens or encumbrances, etc. They keep hitting the victim for money as long as they can – the victim either stops cooperating or runs out of money.

What the victims do not realize is what is going on behind the scenes. Something like this is probably going on behind the scenes:

Picture say a three story office building. In this building are several departments. One is the email spam section. Here the spammers are pushing out as many millions of emails they can each day, this goes on round the clock never stopping. They also will be paying spammers around the world to push out spam for them as well. They may have a fax dept. where they are sending out faxes. They also will be paying fax spammers to send out faxes for them. They probably have a few people assigned to acquiring stolen credit card so they can pay for many of the things they need with stolen credit cards like ordering background investigations on you or your dead relative from a private detective on the internet so they can really use details and facts to make their story most believable. There is a documents section where they generate all the counterfeit documents they send out. Then there is the actual phone room where the so called “barrister” or “banker” or “industrialist” or “fake government official” sits plying his fraud on the victims. These calls are monitored and sales managers walk around coaching the phone salesman as to how to improve their pitch. These calls may be played on a speaker in a room for new trainees to hear with a teacher pointing out the methodology behind the phone call. They probably have sales contests and bonuses. Now when they get a victim to send money, the case will normally go to a higher level con man. They figure they now have a live wire so let the real seasoned pros milk all they can out of them. This is just a depiction of how we see things, we have no factual information .but this should give you an idea of the sophistication level involved. Some say the Nigerian Scam is the third largest industry in Nigeria. Some also say the government of Nigeria has merged with the scammers into a sort of coalition which means there is practically no chance of ever getting your money back from them and probably precious little chance of them ever getting arrested for these scams.

As a closing thought these Nigerian Scammers with frequency try to work their scams on our law firm. They will call saying they are a prospective client and have a large sum like $30,000,000 tied up in some deal in some country, usually there is a daisy chain of banks and countries involved. At some point we start to hear about a substantial fee that is required to get the funds released and they need a short term loan to get the funds released and of course this is when we break off the communication.

Forum Scams

This is how this popular scam works:

1. The scammer locates some forums that are relevant to the business you are trying to promote.
   
   
2. Next you enroll in the forum and post questions like hey I am looking for a good shoe store. I am thinking of buying from abc123shoes.com. Has anybody dealt with them.
   
   
3. You of course have several screen names on the forum and use another screen name to give your shoe store a reference by saying oh I bought from this other store and they were great. Don’t buy from abc123shoes.com they are a scam operation. Of course no facts are given. To really embellish it a link is given to another forum where the scammer has posted similar negative postings to hurt the competitor and references this link to make it really look like the business being targeted for slander is a big scam when they reality is the forum poster and the business they are praising are the scammers. Wolf in sheep's clothing trick. Oh I am your friend and I love to hang around in forums all day long giving out free advice, you can trust me look at how many great posts I have in this forum. This is commonly referred to as a confidence game, they get your confidence and then scam you. This is profound with alternative health care products and even takes place in the offshore financial sector.
   
   
4. To thicken it up more the scammer using additional screen names again posts positively for the business they are trying to promote making it out to be a popular product or service when it is anything but that.
   
   
5. There is a whole industry of professional forum posters who can be hired to go around the internet posting whatever you want on forums. They will have no reservation bad mouthing businesses or promoting junk products. These people are usually in third world countries and will do almost anything to make money.

Thus you see how deceitfully unscrupulous people can promote a scam business. The point of this is not to use forums as a source of references for the credibility of a business any business. Many forums are far from impartial in that the forum owners have businesses that the forums are indirectly used to promote. If the forum owner just provides a forum for people to post they are not really responsible for what is posted. So how hard is it for the forum owner to create a screen name and promote a product/service or bad mouth a competitor thus committing deniable slander.

Forums are not a reliable place to go for information about sourcing products or services. If you listen to the postings on forums you are going to get hurt.

Nigerian Inheritance Scam Emails

These are samples of the Nigerian Inheritance Scam email. We have had clients call us wishing to open bank accounts to receive such an inheritance. The inheritance amount is generally mind boggling – at least $8,000,000 and often $20,000,000. The person calls our law firm and wants to open a bank account and they mention they are going to be receiving a large sum of money. It comes out that it is an inheritance. Generally from someone they did not know, sometimes it is a person they did know. The Nigerians look for links between people on the internet apparently. They play along with their intended victim for a time and then they ask for money to cover expenses usually to get the funds released. They will say they need a certificate of good standing on the funds or some nonsense document that does not exist in the real world of banking. Rest assured they have some documents they can show you complete with stamps, seals etc – all junk they made themselves. If it is too good to be true, it probably isn’t true. Never ever send them any money. Delete their emails and get on with your life. We have encountered people who have given these scammers tens of thousands of dollars. Never once have we ever seen any of these inheritance beneficiaries get any funds. Note the letters use free email address, there are typos and the words used are overly formal.

Generally here is the name of a bank, Lagos .or London, or Honk Kong, or Benin

Dear Friend,

Please forgive me if I intrude your privacy, we do not know each other but it does not matter. what matters is transperency between us in this deal. I am Mr favor Adim Duke an Accountant with Ixyz Bank plc. I came to know about you in my private search for a reliable and reputable person to handle this confidencial business transaction. A foreigner, Late Engr Burke Sean a Contractor with the Federal Government Of until his death in Korean Air flight 801, which Crashed in Guam on August 1997, banked with us here at Inland Bank P.l .c and had a closing balance of US$20.5M (Twenty Million Five Hundred Thousand Dollars) which the bank unquestionably expects it to be claimed by any available next of kin of the late beneficiary or alternatively be donated to a discredited trust fund for Arms and Ammunition at a Military War College here in Nigeria.

Valuable effort have been made by the Inland bank to get in-touch with any of the Burke's family or relative but proved to no avail. it is because of the perceived possiblity of not being able to locate any of the late Engr. Burke Sean's next of kin that the management under the influence of our chairman and Members Of The Boards Of Director, Mr I Yuguda, that an arrangement be made for the funds to be declared Unclaimable and subsequently be donated to the Trust Fund for Arms and Ammunition to further Enhance the course of war in Africa and the World in General as you know that war will eventually bring destruction to man kind. In order to avert this negative development, I now seek your permissionto have you stand as the Next-Of-Kin Of . Engr Burke Sean so that the funds US$ 20.5M (Twenty Million Five Hundred Thousand Dollars) would be release and pay into your Bank Account as the Next Of Kin. This is a deal between you and I only as all Documents and proofs to enable you get this Fund will be carefully Worked out and more so I am, Assuring you a 100% Risk Free Involvment in this deal. your share out of the $20.5m depends on our agreement as we procceed with the deal. I will also like to invest my own part of the money in your country with your help after the transfer. If this Proposal is all right by you then kindly get back to me by e-mailingme thanking you in anticipation of your co-operation. I like if you visit this web site for more clarification on clash. (http://ns.gov.gu/guam/index.html)

Yours Faithfully,
Mr so and so

Accountant xyz Bank plc.
Lagos Branch

Another Nigerian Inheritance Scam Email

Attn: To Whom It May Concern .

This letter is not intended to cause any embarrassment in whatever form, rather it is intended to contact your esteemed self, following the knowledge of your high repute and trustworthiness.

Firstly, I must solicit your confidentiality. I know that a proposal of this magnitude will make anyone apprehensive and worried, but I am assuring you that it is made in good faith and will be of mutual benefit. I am Barrister Rotimi Adams, the personal attorney to Mr James Maxwell,herein after referred to as my client, a national of your country, who until his death was a major crude oil contractor with the federal government of Nigeria.

My client and his entire family were involved in a fatal motor accident, which unfortunately claimed their lives, along the Sagamu express road, sparing none of the occupants of the vehicle. I have since then made several enquiries to your Embassy, in a bid to locate any relation of my client, and these efforts of mine have not been productive. I then decided to trace his last name over the Internet, and came across your name that is why I have contacted you to assist me in securing the money and property left behind by my client before they are declared as unclaimed and unserviceable by the bank where they have been lodged for safekeeping. I am particularly interested in securing the funds lodged with Global Trust Bank Plc, totaling fiften Million, United States Dollar (USD15M). This is because the said Bank has issued a notice to me, unequivocally instructing me to produce the Next of Kin/Beneficiary to the said account within the next ten official working days, or have the account confiscated.

Considering my lack of success in my bid to locate his relatives for over two years, I solicit your consent to enable me produce you as! The Next of Kin to my deceased client, since you both bear the same last name. The funds will then be transferred to you as the beneficiary and shared according to a proposed sharing pattern /ratio of 70:30 i.e. 70% for me and 30% for you. I will provide all the necessary legally obtained documents to back up any claim we make regarding this process, and will just require your understanding and cooperation to enable us achieve success within a legitimate arrangement, eliminating any liability resulting from any breach of the prevalent laws.

Your urgent response will be highly appreciated; you can as well forward to me your Telephone number immediately for more discussion, you could also reach me at: 123@yahoo.com Thank you.

Best Regards,

Nigerian Scam Emails

Nigerian Lottery Scam – Actual Emails

Yes this is an actual email that was sent to us by the scammers. First ask yourself how does the lottery make any money if you do not buy a ticket? It is really not a lottery anymore is it? If the drawing is based on your email address and they say that it is a promotion being run by Microsoft it makes no sense in that one can have an email address and never be using a Microsoft product to access their email. Note how your contact is called Doctor. They start right out with the target respecting the scammer so it is easier for them to take control of them. Why are you not contacting the lottery organization to start with, well there is none in reality. Also note the email address is a free one. The scammer didn’t even set up his own lottery domain name, low budget scammer. Next what will happen is you will be asked to provide information which may result in identity theft and they will play along with you for a while and then you will be asked to pay some money for releases, clearances, origin of funds certificate or other nonsense documents that do not exist in the real world of offshore banking. We have had numerous people contact us wishing to set up a Panama bank account to receive these funds apparently answering this or a very similar email and these people seem fairly bright and intelligent. Greed can be blinding. If it is too good to be true, it probably isn’t true.

END OF YEAR EUROMILLION LOTTERY SPLASH !!!
FROM: INTERNATIONAL PROMOTION/PRIZE AWARD DEPT.
REFERENCE: 67/80/IPD
BATCH: EGGS-541-623-782:
RE: WINNING NOTIFICATION / FINAL NOTICE
Sir/Madam,
We are pleased to inform you of the result of the Euro millions Spanish Lottery Winners International E-mail programs held on the 20TH OF DECEMBER and result where release on the 26TH OF DECEMBER, 2006. Your E-mail address attached to ticket number 653-908-321-675 with serial main number 345-790-241-671 drew lucky star numbers 34-32-90-43-32 which consequently won in the 2ND category, you have therefore been approved for a lump sum pay out of 1.000.000.00 Euro.(One Million Euro)
CONGRATULATIONS!!!
Due to mix up of some numbers and names, we ask that you keep your winning information confidential until your claims has been processed and your money remitted to you. This is part of our security protocol to avoid double claiming and unwarranted abuse of this program by some participants. All participants were selected through a computer ballot system drawn from over 100,000 company and 50,000,000 individual email addresses and names from all over the world. This lottery was promoted and sponsored by Spainsh European Lottery board in order to enhance and promote the use of Internet Explorer Users and Microsoft-wares around the globe. This promotional program takes place every three year. We hope with part of your winning you will take part in our end of year 50 million Euro International lottery.
To file for your claim, please contact our fiducial agent:
DR.ROBERT SANCHEZ
SANCHEZ SECURITY COMPANY ESPAÑA
TEL:0034-638-272-628
Email:sanchezseclaimes@aim.com
Remember, all winning must be claimed not later than one month,After this date all unclaimed funds will be included in the next stake.
Please note in order to avoid unnecessary delays and complications please remember to quote your reference number and batch numbers in all correspondence. Furthermore, should there be any change of address do inform our agent as soon as possible.
Congratulations once more from our members of staff and thank you for being part of our promotional program.
Note: Anybody under the age of 18 is automatically disqualified.
Sincerely yours,
Mrs. Comfort Jose.
--------------------------------------------------------------
This message is confidential. It may also be privileged or otherwise protected by work product immunity or other legal rules. If you have received it please let us know by reply it from your system; you should not copy it or disclose its contents to anyone. All messages sent to and from Sanchez Security Company España may be monitored to ensure compliance with internal policies and to protect your winning from the Euro Million Spanish Lottery Award Promotion.
The contents of any email addressed to our clients are subject to our usual terms of business; anything which does not relate to the official business of the firm is neither given nor endorsed by it.

Below is another one we actually received from the scammers.

This time they are showing a link to a real financial institution. If you look the phone number they provide does not match the region of the world the financial institution is in. This financial institution conceals their phone number but it is under legal information so they chose this website with some care apparently. The website owners probably have no idea they are being used in a scam and are just as much of a victim as the victims themselves. This shows that the scammers will do practically anything that comes into their heads. At the bottom of the email you can see the email anonymization service they were using to conceal their true location which apparently is in Germany. They probably violated the terms of service of this company by sending out such emails and probably paid them with a stolen credit card. Lastly the email address they used in the scam email is a free email address and is not an email in the domain of the financial institution they are saying they are related to, another dead giveaway. Also note the poor spelling and bad English, more giveaways.

LOTERIA PRIMITIVA
Promotion SL,
28044, Madrid Spain.
 
Sir/Madam,

CONGRATULATIONS!!!We are pleased to inform you of the result of the LOTERIA PRIMITIVA Winners International programs held . Your e-mail address attached to ticket No:014032581085 with prize No 43450845/sl drew (100,000.00) Euros which was first in the 2nd class of the draws. You are to receive a (100,000. 00) (One million Euros).

Be informed because of mix up in cash pay-outs, we ask that you keep your winning information confidential until your fund (100,000.00) has been fully remitted to your nominated bank account.

This measure must be adhere to avoid loss of your cash prize winners of our cash prizes are advised to adhere to these instructions to forestall the abuse of this program by other articipants. It's important to note that this draws were conducted formally, and winners are selected through an Internet ballot system from Six hundred individual and companies e-mail addresses- the draws are conducted around the world through our internet based ballot system.The promotion is sponsored and promoted by LOTERIA PRIMITIVA PROMO.

We congratulate you once again. We hope you wil l use part of it in our next draws; the jackpot winning is 85million Euros. Remember, all winning must be claimed not later than 25 days. After this date all unclaimed cash prize will be forfeited and included in the next sweepstake. Please, in order to avoid unnecessary delays and complications remember to quote your winning numbers in all correspondence with us. you are hereby advise to keep your winning informations away from the general public to avoid impersonation,Congratulations once again from all members of LOTERIA PRIMITIVA . Thank you for being part of our promotional program.
For immediate release of your cash prize to you,

please kindly contact our Paying Bank

MR PAUL VANFRANT
C/ARROYO DE LAMIEL 28007 MADRID ESPANA
WEBSITE:WWW.CAJAMADRID.ES
TEL:0034646464264

EMAIL: payingbank1win@aim.com [mailto:payingbank1win@aim.com]

Kindly send the following information to the paying bank:

(i) Your names,
(ii) Contact telephone and fax numbers
(iii) Contact Address
(iv) Your winning numbers
(v) Quote amount won.
Congratulations once again.
Yours Faithfully,
Mrs HELLEN MORGAN
Cordinat or.
Yours sincerely,

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