Did Lottery Scam Lead to Murder?

Last Thursday, Mary Winkler was convicted of voluntary manslaughter for the March 2006 murder of her husband, Matthew Winkler. The day prior to the murder, bank officials had placed a call to Mary Winker for alleged check kiting. Reports claim Winkler had fallen victim to advance fee fraud and was floating the checks to cover-up those losses.

Advance fee fraud email are extremely common; two of the most popular are the Nigerian 419 and Lottery Winner scams. The scams may also take the form of job offers to 'handle currency transactions'.

Nigerian 419 scams generally claim to be from the relative of some high-profile deceased/arrested political figure. The scam claims this relative has horded millions of dollars in cash and are now seeking someone to help transfer the money in exchange for a hefty percentage of the profits. Forged documents are provided in an attempt to convince the victims that the promise of money is legit. Meantime, the scammers claim fees and bribes must first be paid - at the victim's expense, of course.

International Lottery Winner scams attempt to trick recipients into believing they have won large sums of cash, and then bilk them out of their own dough in a similar fashion to the Nigerian 419 scam. Alleged winners are asked for large upfront fees for "processing" the fictitious winnings. In some cases, a real check is sent to respondents, with instructions to deposit it into their account and return a small processing fee. The check eventually bounces and the person is left out of pocket for the processing fee and criminally liable for any of the monies spent out of the bad check.

Advance fee lottery and Nigerian 419 scams are just a few of the many types of scams targeting online users today. For descriptions of other common scams, check out Email Scams, Phishing, and Fraud.