This is a typical Advance Fee Scam also known as the 419 scam but it uses a living person as the bait, as well as inventing a fortune to be available to the lucky punter (victim).

The main part of the email is the standard advance fee scam where the scammer tries to sell you on the idea that he has a fortune to push your way at no expense to you. In this case, it’s an unspecified number of millions of dollars and whatever is invested you will get 30%.

The difference with these emails is that they hijack true stories for their own use.

This latest one uses the name Isabel dos Santos as the lady with the money to give away.

She is a real person – a multi billionaire and claimed to be the richest woman in Africa although she’s actually a Russian living in Angola. She is rich, famous and does give a lot of money to good causes.

Because she’s a real person, the scammer includes a list of links to stories in magazines such as Forbes about her.

She is obviously not stupid enough to give away money to random people contacted by scammers, but then she is not part of what’s going on – it’s just a scammer misusing her good name.

Just because part of a story told by a scammer is true does not mean anything else in the story is true.

If you have any experiences with phishing scams do let me know, by email.