In the 419 scam, the intended victims are approached by people claiming to be West African businessmen and offering a share of a vast unclaimed fortune. The recipients are asked to launder the money through their bank account.

The Nigerian 419 scam (named after the record number of the FBI files pertaining to the scam) has been doing the rounds for over 20 years. No doubt it was easy money in the old days because their solicitations were originally faxed to potential victims and there was very little information regarding the scam. The sending of these faxes was a costly affair as they were sent at international rates. Victims were handpicked and only a few faxes were sent out at a time.

Today the con has become so commonplace that people dismiss it as soon as it hits their mailbox. It has lost momentum because the advent of the internet allows millions of scam emails to be sent out at a relatively low cost. This has also encouraged thousands on eager neophytes to jump on the bandwagon. This glut of con men means that spammers and scammers are now searching for fresh new angles to try to lure the gullible and the greedy.

Experts say that Nigeria has now used up its "trust capital" as a result of the sheer number of scam emails sent out. This means that Nigeria is now so inextricably linked with this fraud that even legitimate unsolicited emails from within the country are regarded with suspicion. To counter this many of the scamsters have changed tack and now “send” their emails from South Africa, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe and other locations. While many of the emails can be traced back to Nigeria there are now many South Africans involved with this type of fraud.

The latest 419 scam offers the recipient a share in the fortune of an Iraqi landowner, called Farouk Al-Bashar, who wants to get his family's money out of Baghdad for fear of it being lost in a bombing raid on the capital. As with all these scams, the best course of action is to report the email to the sender's Internet Service provider (ISP). Or, forward them to international scam sites such as www.consumer-ministry.govt.nz. Do not respond as your name will be added to a database and you will be inundated with solicitations.

As with the September 11 tragedy, the war in Iraq has provided cyber criminals with many new opportunities. A virus writer has already used people's curiosity about events in the Gulf to spread a malicious worm around the world. Similarly there has also been an increase in incidences of hacking and website defacement. We have to be increasingly vigilant about whose emails we respond to and what we download from the internet.