Hi Sima,

I'm sorry to hear that you were scammed, but I'm glad to hear that you got proactive.

The best way to catch these scammers is to get the authorities interested in a sting operation where they get caught picking up the funds. Unfortunately, that requires international cooperation, and not that there isn't any, but the amount of internet fraud around the world is so staggering that new cases are nobody's priority. They are simply too backlogged.

You can report the crime to Interpol and even to Nigeria's national police, and you should, but in all honesty the odds of you getting any money you sent to this scammer are near nil.

What's more effective as a deterrent these days is education rather than police work. I was pleased to hear that you reported your scammer and that a googling of his name will turn up two scam reports. You should continue to expose this person by posting what you know about him other sites such as Facebook and the other social networking sites as well as the ones just designed to expose scammers. Even if you find other reports yours is necessary to show that he is still up to his old tricks and to point up any variations on his behavior.

There are people who like keeping the game going even after they realize that they have been scammed, to see just how far they can make a scammer go and what ridiculous things they can make a scammer do when they think they are goinig to get money. The site that comes quickly to my mind is the Ebola Monkey Man Site. He stays within the confines of the law but makes the scammers look silly. Here is Scambaiters, which is along the same lines and will give you other ways of turning the tables on your scammer. It's not necessarily going to catch him, but again you are publicizing who, what and where he is as well as all you know about him as well as making him look ridiculous, and sometimes, revenge can be awfully sweet.

Good luck..