Citi falls for Nigerian scam artist
CitiBank evidently isn’t aware of various Nigerian scams, because they actually fell for it. No, I’m not making this up. Here’s a link to all the details according to the NY Times.
Swindles in which someone overseas seeks access to a person’s bank account are so well known that most potential victims can spot them in seconds.
But one man found success by tweaking the formula, prosecutors say: Rather than trying to dupe an account holder into giving up information, he duped the bank. And instead of swindling a person, he tried to rob a country — of $27 million.
To carry out the elaborate scheme, prosecutors in New York said on Friday, the man, identified as Paul Gabriel Amos, 37, a Nigerian citizen who lived in Singapore, worked with others to create official-looking documents that instructed Citibank to wire the money in two dozen transactions to accounts that Mr. Amos and the others controlled around the world.
I know everyone has seen the Nigerian email scam spam, but who’d a thunk that Citi would fall for a more elaborate version of the scheme? Maybe this is the real reason they need billions in bailouts? 
gk
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