419 scammer arrested in Florida

A local TV station in Orlando, Florida is reporting that a "most wanted" Nigerian scammer named Rilwan Soetan has been arrested in Tallahassee during a routine traffic stop. Unsurprisingly, he was found with other people's identifying information and multiple cell phones, as well as $6000 in cash.

Here's what I want to know: what was he doing so far from Boca Raton?

Full story at Local6.com.

Clever and aggressive Nigerian scam

OK, here's a new one for the books. You have to admire them though.

Here's how this retelling of the classic Spanish Prisoner scam works: somebody breaks into your hotmail account, most likely by phishing. They then send an "emergency" email to everybody on your contacts list claiming to be you. The email says that you were attending a conference in Nigeria, and that you'd lost your passport, tickets and money. The letter asks you to wire some emergency money to your friend in Nigeria. Step three, profit!

See this article in Rediff: Nigeria Calling: Indians Beware.

National Spam News

I haven't done a news roundup in quite a while, and I have a lot of catching up to do. Are you sitting comfortably? Good, let us begin.

Good article in Slashdot today, bemoaning the fact that the latest Ameritrade leak has gotten no attention from the mainstream press. California law requires them to notify their California customers of a potential security breach. Have they done so? Were customer account ids and passwords also leaked? Ameritrade isn't saying. So far, all they've said is that they take these things seriously. The article suggests some security techniques that Ameritrade should implement to track the source of the leak.

There have been a lot of "greeting card" spams lately. I'll bet you've gotten some yourself. Remember: if the subject line doesn't identify who the card is from, then it's spam. Anyway, Trend Micro reports that these spams are also carrying malware as part of the payload.

Robert Soloway isn't the only one with legal problems this week. TG Daily and other sources report that Microsoft has filed suit against three John Does for sending pump-n-dump spam through their Hotmail service.

The BBC reports that internet service provider Tiscali is now caught up in a serious battle with their spammers. Spam coming from Tiscali has become serious enough that many other ISPs are refusing email from Tiscali, which is seriously impacting their customers. Tiscali has long been plagued with 419 scammers, which they managed to bring under control about 6-8 months ago. It now seems that another house-cleaning has begun.

There is some speculation that Tiscali's problems might be caused by spambots inside their network. See my recent article on this subject.

Ben Edelman reports that spyware is still stealing referal fees. As usual, his claims come with a detailed and in-depth analysis.

The Seattle Times reports that Nigerian 419 scammers are now inviting suckers to get puppies out of the country instead of money. Some people have paid more than $1500 to adopt a valuable dog from Nigeria.

419 Scammer Scammed -- Monty Python style

Oh, this is just precious. Last June, I wrote about how scammer-baiter "Derek Trotter" had convinced would-be 419 scammers to send in wooden carvings in order to win non-existant art scholarships.

Well, last week, thanks to 419eater, the bar has been raised to an all new level. A scambaiter convinced some 419 scammers to re-enact the famous Monty Python "Dead Parrot" sketch.

Enjoy. I know I did.