ISIS scammed out of over $3000 by three women
Reports from the Russian province of Chechnya have claimed that three women scammed terrorist group ISIS out of more than £1900 ($3000 USD) through an online con resembling an advance fee fraud scam.
Islamic State, popularly known as ISIS, are notorious for their attempts to recruit people from Western countries to join their extremist group, with citizens of Great Britain, the United States, Canada and other countries known to have travelled to Syria after becoming radicalised online through recruiters.
Whilst this recruitment has proved beneficial to the terrorists, it also makes them vulnerable to being scammed.
According to Russian reports, 3 women from Chechnya – two of whom were only seventeen – created fictional online identities that corresponded with members of ISIS who attempted to persuade the women to leave their lives and travel to Syria.
However, despite claims that at least one of the women may have been initially attempted to oblige, they subsequently decided to stay but continued communication online with ISIS in order to extract money from them which was intended to pay for their travel expenses to Syria.
After receiving the money from ISIS, the women deleted their social media identities.
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The scam itself is known as catfishing, but also bears a strong resemblance to the notorious advance fee (419 “Nigerian”) scams that we all so often encounter in our email inboxes, in that the victim (ISIS) sent money to the scammers (the 3 Chechen women) on the promise of getting something in return (the woman travelling to Syria and joining ISIS) only to find out after sending the money that the scammers have disappeared, leaving them out of pocket.
Catfishing refers to scams where people create false identities online to their advantage, usually financial, but it most commonly refers to online romance scams.
Police in Russia are investigating the woman, since despite targeting ISIS they still committed fraud, though it is unlikely that it will result in any prosecution since it would require ISIS to file a complaint.
Whilst ISIS are welcome to send out money online to whoever they want, for the rest of us, we recommend never sending out your cash to anyone that you meet online that you cannot trust, especially if you have never met in person. Creating a fictional identity online is easy, and there are criminals out there who specialise in fooling victims into believing that they are someone who can be trusted when that is not the case.
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