Get-Rich-Quick Schemes Based in Nigeria Are Targeted by Authorities : Fraud: While no Ventura County residents appear to have been victimized so far, Secret Service says pitch letters to area may be on the rise.

Pssst. Want to make a quick $10 million or more?

The offer may sound good, but visions of instant fortune didn’t exactly dance through the mind of Westlake Village consulting engineer Dave Conant when he recently received a letter from Nigeria offering him a cut of $32.5 million that was allegedly being spirited out of the West African nation.

Conant dismissed the correspondence from a group called the “committee on Petroleum Trust Fund” that went on to assure him in fractured English that “this business is 100% full-proof and Genuine.”

A second letter from Nigeria arrived a month later, this time purportedly from a Patt Chizobam of FGN Task Force on Funds Recovery, which offered Conant a chance to receive a 30% share of $45 million in “unclaimed funds.”

All Chizobam needed was the name and address of Conant’s bank, his account number and his telephone and fax numbers.

“Accept my sincere congratulations for choosing you as our own ambassador of fortune and we hope to be pleased with each other at the end of the period,” the letter concluded.

At first Conant thought the letters were a joke.

“I was amazed people would take the time putting it together and expect to get a response from anyone with their head screwed on properly,” he said.

But the letters are no laughing matter. In fact, such letters have resulted in the murders of at least two Americans who traveled to Nigeria, the theft of millions of dollars and an untold number of greedy, embarrassed victims, said Craig Spraggins, a spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service.

“We have people who have lost everything they had,” Spraggins said. “They’ve lost their homes, their business, in pursuit of these things.”

No Ventura County residents appear to have been victimized by this international get-rich-quick scheme--none have contacted authorities so far. But the flow of letters to this area shows no signs of abating and may be increasing, officials said.

“I’m receiving currently probably five a week,” said Gary Auer, FBI special agent for Ventura County, who first saw copies of the Nigerian letter in the county about two years ago. “There are more coming now than in the first year.”

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Nigerian organized crime is believed to be behind the letters, which have appeared in the thousands in nations from “Afghanistan to Zimbabwe” since the 1980s, Spraggins said.

The idea behind the letters, which are sometimes sent via fax machine, is to start a dialogue with a business person sensing easy money. Eventually, the person is invited to Nigeria to conclude the alleged business transaction and is relieved of whatever cash the criminals can get, Auer said.

The full scope of the scheme is unclear. Victims are reluctant to come forward because they are either embarrassed or because it’s clear from the letters’ tone that the alleged money is being illegally laundered out of the country, Spraggins said.

And Nigeria isn’t exactly sympathetic to foreigners involved in obviously unscrupulous activity. In June, Nigeria’s military government not only made it illegal for its citizens to take part in such fraud, but also made it a crime for visitors to come to the country in pursuit of such activity.

U.S. authorities have had some success in fighting Nigerian fraud. Last year, two multimillion-dollar cases were successfully prosecuted in New Jersey. But it’s rare for Nigerians to come to the United States to conduct their scheme, Spraggins said.

For the most part, contact with victims is limited to letters, faxes and phone calls until foreigners are lured to Africa.

Those behind the fraud entice people with what Spraggins describes diplomatically as a “lack of business sense” to send passports, money and other personal data by fax or phone to people they have never met thousands of miles away.

California businesses alone are believed to have lost about $5 million last year to such schemes, Spraggins said.

The Secret Service is looking for letter recipients and asks that copies of any suspicious correspondence be sent to them at 1800 G St. N. W., Room 942, Washington, D.C. 20223. Or people may send copies of suspicious letters or faxes to Auer at the Ventura FBI office.

Conant, who did just that, said he isn’t planning a trip to Nigeria any time soon.

Asked why he didn’t fall for the scam, Conant has a simple explanation: “I didn’t take greedy lessons in school.”