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Online Frauds Targets Deputy Minister, Bogopane-Zulu

The Deputy Minister, Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu (of Government of South Africa) of Public Works had precautioned the criminals to immediately stop taking advantage of her name and her state of disability in cheating the general public, reports iol.co.za on May 10, 201. Bogopane-Zulu's blindness is being used in an e-mail scam claiming people to secure abundance of rand left beside by her late husband.

According to the sympathy e-mail, Internet users are being asked for assistance to help her being a willing beneficiary of $30.5 Million (R205 M), which is being allegedly held by a family fund in an offshore bank account in the UK.

The e-mail reports of the money being accumulated due to over-invoicing of an account belonging to Bogopane-Zulu's husband prior to his encounter with rebels in Angola.

While reporting to iol.co.za on May 10, 2011, Bogopane-Zulu had also claimed to have never taken the advantage of her disability and gaining sympathy from people in the fraudulent activities, though she had been targeted earlier as well.

Sadly, the fraudulent scam hitting Bogopane-Zulu have been recognized as the 419 e-mail scam or the notoriously renowned Nigerian advance-fee fraud or AFF. The supposed Nigerian advance-fee fraud had almost disappeared since a decade, but all of a sudden it seemed to have emerged and taking the advantage of benevolent activities, claimed security experts.

Ignorant people are normally taken back with emotion and apparently in the aforementioned case, blindness of Bogopane-Zulu has fuelled the sudden outburst of people's emotion into helping her with the account. These benevolent users, touched by the soft language must have fallen prey to her emotional blackmail and must have agreed towards helping her to transfer the funds.

In conclusion, the security experts have raised the alertness among netizens regarding similar scams as 419 e-mail scam of Bogopane-Zulu. The experts have precautioned that con artists or scammers take the advantage of ignorant people and play with their emotions. But if the victimized remain quite about such mails, the eruption spreads like wildfire and engulfs innumerable ignorant users in their sphere.

Related article: Online Card Fraud Shows Greater Tendency Than Chip and Pin

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