29 Jan 2004
Dutch police arrest 52 suspected email scammers
The Dutch police are reported to have arrested 52 suspected
email scammers at 23 locations across Amsterdam. Computers, mobile
phones, and 50,000 Euros in cash were confiscated from the
suspects, who are believed to have sent 100,000 scam emails to
victims in Japan and the USA.
The crackdown on Wednesday 28 January was designed to crack a
criminal gang engaged in "Advanced Fee Fraud" (also known as the
"Nigerian email" scam).
In 2003 a Dutch court sentenced five scammers to between 300
days and 4.5 years in jail, after a lecturer from Switzerland paid
them $482,000 on the promise of receiving $9 million.
"These email scams, promising fortunes in money are frequently
received by all who use the internet," said Graham Cluley, senior
technology consultant for Sophos. "Astonishingly some people's
greed makes them fall for the false promises of the emails and
before they know it they find their bank accounts have been
emptied. Users should be wary of any email that seems too good to
be true."
Sophos recommends companies protect themselves with a consolidated solution which can defend
businesses from the threats of both spam and viruses.
About Sophos
More than 100 million users in 150 countries rely on Sophos as the best protection against complex threats and data loss. Sophos is committed to providing security and data protection solutions that are simple to manage, deploy and use and that deliver the industry's lowest total cost of ownership. Sophos offers award-winning encryption, endpoint security, web, email, and network access control solutions backed by SophosLabs - a global network of threat intelligence centers. With more than two decades of experience, Sophos is regarded as a leader in security and data protection by top analyst firms and has received many industry awards.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.