Advance Fee Fraud Initiative: Queensland Police Service

The Queensland Police Service (QPS) in Australia has developed an initiative to assist victims reporting Advance Fee Fraud. This initiative will, in some cases, progress a fraud report to an overseas Law Enforcement Agency. It also provides the QPS with key intelligence to proactively combat this crime.

Advance Fee Fraud scams originating from Nigeria and other West African countries such as Ghana have been deceiving people all over the world out of hundreds of thousands of dollars per month for many years. Numerous examples have been recorded of victims being deceived by African fraudsters with many now financially destitute.

Financial scams promise the victim a large return for a small investment. Internet romance scams are very aggressive in nature and target the emotional vulnerabilities of the victim. These are some of the Nigerians scams that people have recently become victim to:

• Request to use a bank account to deposit a large sum of money
• Business opportunity
• Online Relationship
• Fraudulent cheque (check) or credit card scam
• Charity scam

More information on this initiative may be obtained from the Online Reporting System for Advance Fee Fraud webpage of the Queensland Police Service.