One of my colleagues yesterday consulted me over an email he received recently from a lady who allegedly says she is in Canada. Both have been communicating for a while now, and the lady is even alleging to have sent the guy some gifts through a guy (her friend) who is coming to Africa for a visit.

The messages which I also read look so real such that a gullible person can easily believe and get ahead dishing out personal details to the sender. Now the lady wants the guy to scan his identity card and email her so that she can verify his details. Internet crooks use such messages to lure their victims into their extortion rings.

A good number of Kenyans have fallen into cyber cons traps who promise their victims lucrative jobs that are so tempting, right now a family in Nairobi is struggling to rescue its family member currently in the hands of kidnappers for eleven months now in Conackry Guinea.

The aviation lecturer was abducted after being lured by Internet crooks into a seemingly lucrative gemstones export business. They wanted him to be a partner in a multi-million shilling business involving the export of gold from West Africa to the US.

After months of contact through the e-mails, Ngolo flew to Guinea to meet his would-be business partners, only to be taken hostage at the airport.

The kidnappers are now demanding 38 million Kenya shillings for the man to be rescued, so far his family through fund raising has managed to wire Shs 900,000 only, this amount is way far much below the demanded amount. The kidnappers are said to have the contacts of Ngolo’s close friends and make them pay money regularly and threaten to kill him if their demands are not met.

Ngolo’s case is so traumatizing and fruitless since government efforts to rescue him have proved futile now that Guinea is a lawless country after last year’s coup, the country is not even recognized by the African Union.