Another Nigerian email scam hits the ether

ANOTHER “Nigerian” scam email has appeared, this time using Austrade’s name as an endorsement.

The email from Dr Thabo Ngomeni, who bills himself as a special adviser to the Minister of Safety and Security, claims to have received the recipients’ contact details from Austrade International’s Johannesburg office.

It asks for the recipient’s bank details so the Ministry can deposit $US35.5 million into the account.

An Austrade spokeswoman said the scam email was a great concern to the agency and it was not the case that contact information had come from its South African office.

“Our priority at the moment is to go out to our client base and let them know that Austrade is not endorsing this email,” the spokes-woman said.

“We haven’t had any sec-urity breaches of our inform-ation systems.”

The spokeswoman said Aus-trade was making a point of recording whenever these scams cropped up.