Do you want to make $200,000 fast? Perhaps you should try online scamming. Every year, hapless American citizens contribute about $15 million into the bank accounts of mostly Nigerian conmen posing, in emails, as business people, aid workers, priests, or African royalty. However, a community of online vigilantes, known as "scambaiters," has decided to fight back. Since the 1990s, internet fraud artists have made their money through scams that Interpol has described as "crude, amateurish, and preposterous." Through email, the poseurs solicit investment in mock businesses or donations to fake humanitarian organizations, defrauding the gullible participants of large sums of money. The average victim loses $2,000, and various international law enforcement bodies have trouble catching the criminals because most of them reside in West Africa or other locations overseas. Enter the scambaiters. A web community known as the 419 Eaters (419 is the section of the Nigerian criminal code dealing with fraud) have, made it their mission to bother, hinder, and in any way possible prevent these con artists from exploiting innocent people. When a scammer is discovered, the scambaiters devise a strategy to convince the conman that they are potential victims for his scheme. Once the scammer is convinced, the scambaiters try to continuously waste the time and resources of the crook. They send their victims to different Western Unions, post offices, and sometimes other cities and countries to retrieve their "money." The scam baiters protect the innocent and have a grand time messing with dishonest fraudsters. In the most epic scambait to date, three online vigilantes, posing as a church group, convinced a Nigerian conman, Adamu Lawal, to officially join their church. Lawal was attempting to defraud the church of $200,000, but unbeknown to him, the "church" was actually three American men out to give him a hard time. The scambaiters were featured on the popular Chicago Public Radio programme, This American Life, which recently chronicled Lawal's unprecedented journey in search of a fool's bounty. Through a symphony of fake emails and phone calls, the three Americans convinced Lawal that the only way to get his money is to meet one of their church members in N'Djamena, Chad. Lawal unwittingly takes the arduous journey from his hometown of Lagos, Nigeria to the dangerous and unpredictable capital of the predominantly Muslim country of Chad, while wearing the uniform of a Christian missionary (a necessary requirement, he was told). Once in N'Djamena, Lawal is unable to find "Hamdan," the man with the money who he was supposed to meet. This is largely because "Hamdan" is not real. The scambaiters, through email and phone calls, convince Lawal that a comedy of "errors" has taken place. He is now told that he must travel again to Abeche, Chad just across the border from the war-stricken Darfur region of Sudan. He does, hiring a driver and promising to pay him $500 upon arrival at the Western Union. Once in Abeche, Lawal unsurprisingly has trouble getting in touch with imaginary characters that have promised to give him $200,000 and a plane ride home. He began to send increasingly desperate emails. He claimed to be without food and water, constantly having to dodge the roaming militias plaguing that region of Africa. Because Lawal was a professional liar, it’s impossible to determine how he was actually living, but it certainly wasn't pleasant. The scambaiters eventually got bored and Lawal discovered that he was duped. Somehow, Lawal made it back to Lagos where he is still in the internet scamming business, and, astonishingly, still being conned by the three Americans who sent him to Chad in the first place. Scambaiting has become a popular online sport, and Adamu Lawal's saga can be read in full on the website 419eater.com. Source: The Sunday World