Fancy a $2.25m Bribe?

It may not be a surprise to those working within the financial services industry, but today I reported my first suspected fraud to SOCA. This followed an email addressed to me personally and offering a bribe to help move $15m from Africa. I won’t mention which President’s name was used to provide the bait or the country concerned.  I suspect that the email is completely bogus, but given that the FSA are keen to see that IFAs are involved with the fight against terrorism and financial crime (and my compliance consultants suggesting this would be wise) I duly reported the incident, though do so frankly expecting it to be just another email scam.

I very much doubt that there are three boxes, each stuffed with $5m for onward cargo. The payment for help to move the money out of Africa (which I am assuming is fictitious) is 15% of the stated amount; that’s $2.25m which I guess is a fairly reasonable bribe! So do let me know if on your travels across Africa, you come across three luggage trunks that look like they may be stuffed with money. They will be the one's with several armed guards.

If you have similar emails, which I certainly used to have several years ago. I am almost 100% certain that they will be completely bogus, but just in case – let the authorities know.