Criminals purporting to be relatives of African dictators have been circulating Spam e-mails since the late 90’s. These e-mails target companies and individuals. The message is basically the same: The sender claims to be a relative of an African dictator who has acquired wealth illegally and due to security reasons the relative wants to take the wealth out of the country. Normally, they request that the receivers of these e-mails provide to them their personal information such as “(a) Your complete name, (b) Your Telephone/Fax Numbers” and banking coordinates, so that millions of dollars will be transferred into the receivers’ accounts. In return, the senders claim that the e-mail recipients would receive as much as 30% of the amount transferred.

Since the late 90s, The Perspective has received this type of e-mails from individuals who claimed to be relatives of Mobutu, Abacha, Savimbi, etc. Now, it appears that Liberians have joined this criminal scheme.

Recently, e-mails supposedly from Chucky Taylor and another person by the name of "John Massaquoi", who claims to be the son of the late Francois Massaquoi were brought to our attention. In order to make this fraud scheme appear credible, the so-called John Massaquoi referenced an article that The Perspective published when Francois Massaquoi died (http://www.theperspective.org/massaquoi.html).

In view of the above, the management of The Perspective would like to alert our readers and those who may receive such e-mails that The Perspective is in no way, shape or form, associated with, nor connected to this scam. We, therefore, urge our readers and those who may fall prey to this criminal activity not to reveal their personal information to these criminals.

The Management of The Perspective