Legal Question in Banking Law in United Kingdom

Gentleman seeking help to invest inheritance in UK

Dear lawguru, a gentleman from the Ivory Coast has sent me an email and claims to have inherited a large sum of money. He would like to invest it in the uK and to do so would like me to provide him a British account in my name to transfer the funds to this country. In return for doing do he'll offer me 20% of the large sum. The email and the documents all look real and bonafide, and there's a reference to contacting his lawyer. Is this illegal or dodgy? Is it a scam? or shall I proceed? If so, how should I go about it?


Asked on 10/01/03, 8:23 am

1 Answer from Attorneys

Volker Hirsch RA Hirsch

Re: Gentleman seeking help to invest inheritance in UK

Although it might disappoint you, the number of sons, cousins, businessmen, chiefs and relatives of warlords from African countries that seem to be around wanting to give people a share of between 20 and 40% of certain sums of money that came into their hands on the most incredible of ways is quite astonishing.

In particular lawyers are rather frequently the recipients of such requests and, as far as I know, all of those have been a sham. This does not necessarily mean that this is the case here as well but let's face it: it's rather likely.

My recommendation would therefore be to simply ignore it.

Common sense would probably tell you the same: since when is Britain a country that would make it overly cumbersome to willing investors to bring much needed funds to the country? Wouldn't you normally go through a recognised bank (in particular for larger amounts of money, their private-client units are rather helpful)? When you look at it this way, it sounds rather fishy, doesn't it?

Sincerely,

Volker Hirsch

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Answered on 10/01/03, 2:21 pm


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