Citibank reads, believes their spam
Benjamin Weiser of the New York Times proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that even large organizations fall for those fly-by-night Internet scams and need quick loans to dig their way out. But, come on, seriously? You were taken in by a Nigerian con artist, Citibank?
That’s right. A con artist by the name of Paul Gabriel Amos worked with a team to create documents that fooled Citibank into wiring them money in transactions totaling about $27 million. The money came from a Citibank account in New York held by the National Bank of Ethiopia. The con artists posed as Ethiopian bank officials and approved the transactions. They could quickly get loans from the bamboozled financial megalith that never required them to repay.
Not-as-famous Amos has been arrested
He was charged with conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud. If the Nigerian scammer is convicted, he could spend 30 years in prison.
According to Weiser, the prosecutors traced the scheme back to September of 2008, when Citibank received documents instructing them to accept instructions by fax from the Ethiopian bank. Included was a list of officials who would confirm the requested transactions (each of them a member of the con team, of course). The signatures of the officials on these documents even appeared to match those in Citibank’s records, so it was all accepted.
In October, Citibank received the faxed requests for money to be wired, and it transferred $27 million to accounts in Japan, South Korea, Australia, China, Cyprus and the United States. After the ruse was discovered, Citibank credited all lost funds. However, the damage to the bank’s already teetering credibility had long since been done. Now, with banks like Citibank nationwide crying to the government for quick loans to help them remain solvent, it makes you wonder why President Obama and his team continue to put up with bank leadership that fall for schemes like this. If it’s because the verification process itself is flawed, then FIX IT!
Related articles
- Citibank Sends Nigerian Scammer $27 Million [Whoops] (consumerist.com)
- DOJ: Nigerian Scammed Citibank Out of $27 Million (gothamist.com)
- 419 scammer impersonates the nation of Ethiopia, takes $27 million from Citibank (boingboing.net)
Thanks for this wonderful video. I am a Nigerian living in Canada. But I want to tell you that this 419 youths in Nigeria is so rampant in Nigeria that there is no way the government whom its also corrupt can eradicate it. The only way it can be eradicated is if the Government find Jobs for these young men. Things are very bad over there.
As a Nigerian I get all these nasty emails too,. I use to send them to the FBI and RCMP here in Canada then I got tired of it. Now I just delete anytime I get one.
That’s a huge oops!
This is almost laughable. Citigroup is supposed to be this giant of the financial industry, yet they let this happen? Are all of these guys THAT desperate to get their hands on a new raft of gold plated back scratchers that they’ll lend to anyone? Oh lord, when does it end? These kind of companies are supposed to only employ the creme de la creme, the elite Harvard MBA types that are supposed to be smarter than that. No more bailouts for them, please.