Harvard Prof. Scams Friends, Students To Pay Nigerian Scammers

from the scam-within-a-scam dept

Amazing. You always wonder what sort of people are taken in by Nigerian 419 scams. They seem like such obvious scams, and there's been so much press coverage about them that you wonder who could possibly still fall for them. Apparently, the answer is a former Harvard professor and AIDS/cancer researcher. After falling for one such Nigerian scam, he proceeded to scam friends, colleagues and even students out of $600,000. He claimed he was setting up a SARS research center in China (this was at the height of the SARS scare), when he was really funneling that money to Nigerian scammers so he could get his share of a non-existent $50 million prize. Apparently, like some other 419 victims, this scientists still refuses to admit that his Nigerian contacts were scamming him.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    Andrew Klossner, 31 Mar 2004 @ 1:22pm

    No Subject Given

    More likely he stashed the money and claimed to have sent it to Nigeria so he wouldn't have to cough it up.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    dorpus, 31 Mar 2004 @ 4:14pm

    Obligatory One-up comment

    Harvard has peerless programs in AIDS, cancer, and clinical trials research. They're not too good at the newer types of research that involve interdisciplinary collaboration between biology, math, and computer science. Faculty egos are too big, and they have secure funds from prestigious grant programs, therefore little incentive to change.

    I got a scholarship from one of the better public universities for such a program, though. ;-) I'm moving there shortly, to start working for a prof.


    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.