As enticing as a six-million-dollar gift may seem, Safety and Security Crime Prevention Officer Rebel Roberts posted a BlitzMail bulletin warning members of the Dartmouth community not to accept such an offer from a group purporting to be a Nigerian oil firm.
Last month, a Dartmouth professor received a letter from Lagos, Nigeria soliciting banking information. The letter asked the recipient to keep the contents of the letter confidential and to fax information such as their company names and addresses, banker's name and account number.
In return, a sum of more than $25 million would be deposited in the bank account, the letter said, and the account holder could keep 25 percent of the money.
Roberts posted the bulletin warning the community of the actions and urging the forwarding of these types of letters to Safety and Security.
Roberts said there was another report of a similar letter being sent to someone on campus. Both letters were forwarded to the Hanover Police.
Roberts said the bulletin message was an attempt to be "proactive" about the letter.
"Scams go on quite a bit and we're trying to make people aware when we receive information on them," she said.
Roberts said she encouraged anyone who received such a letter to make Safety and Security aware of it.
Hanover Police Detective Sergeant Frank Moran said similar letters have been sent to other people in the Hanover area.
"It's been an ongoing issue," he said. "It's not just people within the College."
Moran said although the letters seem like a blatant attempt at fraud, there were some people "sucked in."
Moran said because the letters were sent from Nigeria, the Hanover Police forwarded them to the Secret Service.
Secret Service Agent James Fitton said the Nigerian scam operation has been going on "all over the country" and the Secret Service has a task force working on Nigerian fraud.
The fraud is widespread, Fitton said. The Secret Service office in Concord receives three to four forwarded copies of the letter each week.
"Dartmouth doesn't have the head up on anything," he said. "It has been going to professional business people all over the country."
Fitton said the people solicited usually were listed in a volume of "Who's Who," books published annually listing notable figures in a certain field.
Fitton said people have been receiving scam letters sent from Nigeria for several years, and he suspects more than one group is involved.
"They just seem to like to do this," he said. "Fortunately for us, most people are smart enough not to get involved with it."
"When they get involved, they generally lose a lot of money," he said. "Nobody gives away $30 million just for opening bank accounts."
Most of the letters claimed they were from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation. Fitton said the actual company did not appear to be involved.
He said the Nigerian con-artists had several ways to take people's money including the letters as well as credit card fraud.
"We have ongoing investigations in a number of areas," he said. "We are working with the Nigerian government trying to get this thing straightened out."
Fitton said the con-artists were "smart and cautious."
He said some Nigerian con-artists work by coming over to the U.S. using student visas to go to college. After their visa expires, they remain in the country and dedicate their life to credit card scams.
Fitton said he has arrested a number of Nigerians in New Hampshire associated with credit card fraud. Fortunately, only one person in New Hampshire has fallen for the bank account letter scam, he said.
"This is something that they're successful at," Fitton said. "We just try to warn people that if it's too good to be true, it's too good to be true."
Fitton said anyone who receives a letter from a Nigerian company asking for bank account information should forward it to the Secret Service office in Concord.
