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Neighbourhood watch against net-scammers

High risk hobby. Every week, "Hans" spends 10-12 hours tricking scammers on the Internet. This Norwegian is part of an international network where at least 4800 so called "baiters" - decoys / stool pigeons - work to put hardened scammers out of the game. The decoys see it as their task to protect uninformed people against the experienced mass of scammers. "The goal is to make the scammer use so much time and resources on us that they don't have the capacity to scam others," says Hans.

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Ideological high risk hobby. "Hans" is one of a handful of Norwegians who use their spare time to bait international gangs of scammers. "I cut down to ten to twelve hours a week when I got married," he says.

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Aftenposten has in its possesion nine checks of variable quality that a single baiter has received. The checks, which are dated from October and November of this year, are written for amounts totalling close to one million kroner⁶.

"Neighbourhood watch" attacks professional netscammers

They call themselves "baiters" and their big passion is to lay traps for organised bands of scammers. "Hans" is one out a handful¹ of Norwegians that use their spare time to prevent others from being scammed.

Christian Steenstrup
(text and photo)

Voluntary decoy. Aftenposten² meets Hans near his home in the eastern part of Norway. After death threats from organized gangs of scammers, he wants his last name and homestead kept secret. Scambaiting, the "sport" that has appered online the last two years, isn't totally without risk.
Earlier this month, Aftenposten wrote about large scale attempts at scamming Norwegians. In an area where complaints to the police are often dismissed, the baiters sees it as their misson to protect uninformed people against the experienced mass of scammers. They do this in a number of ways. A method used often is to pose as an online car seller and bombard the con man with questions, planned delays, and false personal data. Another course of action is to put a stop to fake banks that are created by the scammers in order to fool the victims into giving out their account numbers and money (see sidebar).

Positive hobby
"I view this as a hobby with positive effects that extend beyond just myself. The goal is to make the scammers use so much time and economical resources on us that they don't have capacity to scam others," the Norwegian tells Aftenposten.
"What is your motivation?" asks the reporter.
"The ultimate goal is to prevent others from getting cheated. But it is fun as well," Hans admits.
Hans is part of one of the world wide networks. In it, around 4800³ baiters are cooperating across national borders throught an internet-based forum, to put hardened scammers out of commision. The milieu calls themself 419⁴. The number symbolises the paragraph in the Nigerian penal code that concerns scams.

Collects trophies⁵
In the baiter-milieu, "trophies" are commonly collected. A trophy is tangible evidence that the swindler has been fooled. The most common trophies are fake checks. But among the toughest baiters, a serious death threat is considered a more valuable prize. It is tangible evidence of the scammers irritation towards the baiter.
Hans has received both checks and a death threat. A scammer once sent a picture of a decapitated rooster in an email. In several West-African cultures this means one is put on a death list.
"Do you fear for your safety?" asks the reporter.
"No, I don't. I take precautions. I never give my real name, address, or homeland and I only use web based email accounts I can close quickly," says Hans, showing a fake check sent from Sweden.
"I am not very interested in revealing that I'm Norwegian when we (the baiters) know the scammers have a presense in a neighouring country."

Widespread in Africa
For a long time, Nigeria has been known for harbouring scammers. This is still the case. But the organised swindlers have expanded outwards, into both Africa and Europe.
"It's important to understand that we are not racists. But this is a problem that can linked in particular to West-Africa and West-African immigrants, especially among those who have moved to the Netherlands," says Hans.
Lately, the baiter-milieu that Hans is a part of has cleaned up their ethics guidelines. No longer do they try to make the scammers send money as a sign of "good will". Other methods, like using false identification papers and provoking criminal acts (sting operations), are no longer a part of the tools used, according to Hans.
"Do you see any problems with this activity?" asks the reporter.
"We are perhaps operating in a kind of legal gray area, but we believe what we are doing is ethically right."

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-The goal does not hallow the means

Christian Stennstrup

Assistant Director Lars Wilberg in the Police's Computer Crime Center is not familiar with the new movement when Aftenposten calls.
On general experience he nevertheless says:
"All investigations and combating of crime is the responsibility of the Police. There should be no reason to create a vigilante group on the Internet".
"So you do not wish for a cooperation?" the reporter asks.
"I can't comment on that issue, since I am unfamiliar with the movement. But I can say that as a whole, we are very interested in information from the general public," says Wilberg.
The assistant director cautions that it could be problematic if the baiters themselves break the law in their attempts to fight crime.
"One has to be careful not become criminally liable. One cannot defend oneself with the notion that the goal always hallows the means¹," says Wilberg.
The baiter "Hans" hasn't been in contact with Norwegian or international police². Partly, this is caused by the fact that the scammers aren't known to live in Norway.
He also believes that the police neither have, nor wish to bring enough resources to bear on this kind of international scam.
"We wish to cooperate with the police in all nations, but in most nations the police are not interested," says the Norwegian.

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Swindlers in technological development over 300 years

Fraud with letters, checks and bank accounts is not a new problem. 300 years ago, the so called "Spanish prisoner" scam started to spread.

Wealthy families were contacted and begged to help finance rescue attempts of children which, according to the letters, were held prisoner in Spain.
In the 1980s, the so called "Nigera letters" started to spread, at first by mail, and then by fax.
They were intended to make people either let money be laundered in their accounts, or to make them pay for some form of service. In the 1990s, the Internet and e-mail started to be used for more extensive and credible scams. This was also the time the first fake banks appeared.
A fake bank is most often a website purporting to be real bank that has instead been created by the swindlers.
With checks, logos, and professionaly designed webpages providing a measure of credibility, the banks are used to scam uninformed people for money. One way to close a fake bank is to check it against the list of licenses issued by the credit inspection bureau of the bank's supposed home country.
If it is a fake, the baiters contact the people responsible for the webserver the bank is hosted on. If the domain provider does not cooperate, the baiters torpedo the bank by using up the available bandwith the bank has.

Guidelines against internet scammers

• If something sounds too good to be true, is it most likely is too good to be true.
• If you have to pay back money you have received via a check, someone is trying to scam you.
• Serious banks and credit card companies will never ask for detailed information via email.
• No person whom you have never met will give or send you large amounts of cash.
• You will never win a lottery you havn't entered.

Source: 419eater

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Scams the scammers

A handful of Norwegians¹ have formed a neighbourhood watch against the online scammer gangs, and use their spare time to prevent others from being scammed. But it is a hobby not without danger.

It is Aftenposten which today tells about "Hans", one of the "baiters" who has appeared online the last two years.

Organised crime
Online scamming has taken off, and an increasing number of Norwegians are being targeted with everything from Nigera-letters to phoney car sales. Often the scam is difficult to expose, and organised criminals are behind it.

Here are the most common internet scams²

Now an increasing number of Norwegians are using their time to expose the scammers' tricks, bombard them with emails and questions, and stop the fake banks the scammers create to trick you into giving them your bank account and personal details.

"Hans" is one of the 4800 decoys in a worldwide network which calls itself 419. The name comes from the paragraph in the Nigerian penal code which deals with scams, Aftenposten writes.

Death threats
He has already received several³ death threats from criminals who are furious over the activities he engages in. "Hans" still does not worry over his own safety.

"I take precautions. I never furnish my real name, address or homeland, and only uses web-based email accounts I can close quickly," he says to the paper.

It is nevertheless not harmless to meddle with organised criminals. Last year an American was killed by Nigerian mafia after having had fun with them via email as a reply to an attempted scam⁴.

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Neighbourhood watch against internet scams

Thue 23rd Dec 2004 11:45am

A group of Norwegians uses their spare time to fool internet scammers. The purpose is to make the swindlers use so much time on them that they can not manage to fool the rest of us.

A person calling himself "Hans" tells Aftenposten that the hobby in no way is without risks.

Decapitated rooster in the mail
He has allready recived unveiled death threats from several scammers. Among other things an email with a picture of a rooster with it's head chopped off. In West-Africa, where many of the internet scammers resides or orignates from, this means you're on a death list.

Norwegian police is not wholy enthusiastic for the activity of the around 10 Norwegian computer experts who make up the anti swindel group.

"All investigations and combating of crime is the responsibility of the Police. There should be no reason to create a vigilante group on the Internet", says assistant director Lars Wilberg at the Police's Computer Crime Center to Aftenposten