Nigerian scammer's comeuppance

We've all received them. Those emails. Written with poor spelling and a more poor command of the English language. The person is the son/daughter/nephew of some deposed dictator or high government official in Nigeria. Or perhaps it is just from some corrupt bank official in same said country.

The premise is always the same. There are several millions of US dollars in some account that the originator of the email can't get to by themselves, but with your generous help, they can. And for your troubles, they will reward you with great sums of dollars. Sometimes several millions of dollars. All you have to do is be willing to say you are somehow entitled to the money.

Of course it's a scam. Usually there is some sort of processing fee involved, probably several thousand dollars, or possibly tens of thousands of dollars. But really, what is the four or five or twelve thousand dollars when you stand to gain $1.5 million? Peanuts. So you go through all of this, fork over your money, only to find out there isn't any money. Never was, never will be. It is all a scam.

These scams, come to be known as Nigerian email scams, are also known as 419 scams. The 419 is the section of the Nigerian penal code which deals with these types of scams. That's kind of a laugh though. I guess just because a law is on the books, doesn't mean that the law is ever enforced. But I'm starting to ramble. What I wanted to talk about here is the saga of Nicholas Okorie.

Nicholas Okorie is one of those adorable Nigerian scammers. His problem is that he contacted the wrong person. No, he didn't get in trouble with the law (at least, as far as I know) but he did receive some justice.

You can read Okorie's story here, at 419eater.com It's really quite an amusing story. Suffice it to say, he was talked into getting a tattoo to prove his 'worthiness' of the finances he was trying to scam from a church. Here's the picture he sent to the church proving his tattoo. You have to read the whole story though, it is quite imaginative. Makes me wish I had the time and knowledge to mess with people like this. The tat is the 'church' logo. Here is a better picture of the tat.