NIGERIA: Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo said yesterday he would step up measures against his country's notorious "junk-mail conmen" who swindle people around the world of hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
The so-called 419 scam, named after an article in Nigeria's penal code outlawing it, has been so successful in the past 20 years that campaigners say it is now the third to fifth-largest foreign exchange earner in Africa's most populous nation.
"Let me sound a note of warning to all those currently involved in any form of 419, cyber and computer crimes," Mr Obasanjo said while inaugurating a presidential committee on junk-mail scams, in the capital, Abuja.
"The government will step up measures against these criminal activities."
The fraud swindles people around the world, who respond to junk e-mails promising them a share of non-existent fortunes.
Mr Obasanjo said the committee would recommend urgent steps to deal with the scam and examine existing laws.
He said the committee would also consider setting up a new agency to deal with the crime.
The committee, headed by the president's security adviser, has two months to submit a report.
Since May, Nigeria's anti-fraud agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, has arrested more than 200 people, including a federal lawmaker, for junk-mail fraud. Among those being prosecuted are the alleged perpetrators of the biggest ever 419 swindle, a $180 million fraud that brought down a Brazilian bank. "I am convinced that your recommendations would assist government to design appropriate policies to block all the loopholes . . . and stamp out all forms of 419 from society," Mr Obasanjo said at the ceremony.
Meanwhile, Nigeria has recovered $149 million of funds stolen from the oil-rich nation by former ruler Sani Abacha in the 1990s, after a deal reached with Jersey, the country's Finance Minister said. The repatriation of the stolen money marks one of Nigeria's greatest successes in its five-year search for up to $3 billion in funds looted by Gen Abacha and close associates during his rule from 1993 until his death in 1998.
Finance Minister Ms Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said she was also confident that Switzerland would return $618 million in blocked Abacha assets to Nigeria.
Efforts are also under way to repatriate monies from Britain.