An official-looking e-mail comes your way asking if you know a bank manager. Alternatively, the message is sent to bank managers themselves, whose e-mail addresses can be found through their banks’ websites.

The people who sent the e-mails claim to work in the government of a poor country (most often Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Ghana, or Bulgaria) and require a bank manager for a working partnership.

The senders say that they are looking for a foreign partner who could help transfer out money that is meant to be spent, let’s say, in Nigerian governmental programs, but – if unspent, the funds just get lost. Such an example is “relocating cash held by the Nigeria’s Presidential Payment Debt Reconciliation Committee”. Basically, they are suggesting the bank manager helps with money laundering.

The scammers have a detailed plan (with accountants involved and intricate descriptions of how they could get the money), which makes sense for the victims. Recently, a bank manager in Arizona and one in Toronto were arrested after admitting being part of such a deal.

How to avoid: we said “victims” but anyone who takes part in this sort of corruption deserves all the weight of the law to descend on them.