Sophos warns of Falkland Island email scam

First there were scam emails out of Nigeria, now there’s one referencing the Falkland Islands, said anti-virus software vendor Sophos.

Sophos’ labs in Sydney were sent an email scam which claimed $US20,000,000 was up for grabs from Mrs Silvana Jayasinha of - wait for it - the Falkland Islands.

Heading as far south as possible, the scammers claim Mrs Jayasinha, nee Weddell, formerly a Hong Kong citizen, wasn’t offering the paltry 10 percent or 15 percent, but all of the money up on offer.

Sophos said, “all you need to do is to assure her that you will ‘use this fund judiciously’".

These types of email scams were now being referred to as '419 scams' by security vendors. The number was the “relevant section of the Criminal Code of Nigeria”, the country where these scams originated from.

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