Hello, I am Miss Young. This story is about Charles Soludo, which is the name of the governor of the Central Bank in Nigeria. His name is popular among scammers, and you can read more stories about him here: first, second, third.

I received this mail from S.Y.:

I told him that it was a scam. A few days later he sent me this:

I sent S.Y. this answer:

Hi S.Y.
This IS a scam. I would also like to receive $35.7m, but all this scammer want is YOUR money.

Do you have a contract in Nigeria worth $35.7m?? I doubt it. Here are some other fraud letters using the name Charles Soludo: http://www.google.com/search?q=charles+soludo+fraud

It is correct that 234-1-4369534 is not a mobile phone. But that does not mean that it is a telephone number to Charles Soludo. Here are the correct telephone numbers of the Central Bank: http://www.cenbank.org/aboutus/contacts.asp. I suggest you call him on one of these numbers.

The documents you forwarded are bad forgeries. It is very easy to see that they put your name on top of some older documents, and they made some other changes as well.

On the "Foreign Payment Allocation Approval" the letterhead is missing information like address, telephone number etc. After the place where they inserted your name, the top of the letter V in APPROVAL is missing, and the wing of the eagle is deform. The bottom of the letter A in APPROVAL is missing. First when they put it in the original amount, and second time when they corrected it "US$35,". The background where they inserted your name the second time is incorrect. They also inserted "23/9/2005" as a date where it was supposed to be which day in APRIL 2005 the document was signed. It is obvious that the signature is a forgery. It does not even give the name of the person signing the document.

The "Payment and Transfer Approval" looks nicer, but is also a fake document. The letterhead is also missing the address, telephone number etc. It says "Lagos-Nigeria", but as far as I know, the headquarters of the Central Bank is not in Lagos, but in Abuja. The letter refers to the "approval received from Federal Ministry of Finance", but the two documents are both dated "23/9/2005". That is not realistic. It also says your nationality is "United States of America". If they owe you that much money, I suppose they know your correct nationality! Look at the background behind your name (twice), "United States of America" and "$35,700,000.00" (twice), and you can see that it is incorrect.

Please do not send any money to these criminals. ...

A few days later, S.Y. was back:

Hi again S.Y,

The bank draft is also false. The backgroundpattern must be "CENTRALBANKOFNIGERIA" repeatedly in green letters. If you look at the pattern behind the boxes with date, and behind the amount, and behind your name, you will see that the pattern is broken. The horizontal line under your name is also thinner than the rest of the line.

If you received an email about a lottery that you did not participate in, it is a scam.

You will probably receive more of these emails in the future. Please ignore them.

S.Y. also sent me a passport. A closer look at the passport shows that the "Date of issue" is present, but the "Date of expiry" is missing. The signature has been copied from a document with white background, and the lower part is missing. You can see the remainders of the original signature in the words "birth" and "Signature".