Fresh off last weekend’s attack on two immigrants in Oulu, hundreds of people marched for tolerance in the city on Friday. The procession culminated with Imam Abdul Mannan presenting a plea for peace to mayor Matti Pennanen.
Saturday’s deadly pizzeria shooting in the city left one Moroccan man dead and another seriously injured.
Demonstrators called on Oulu decision makers and police to promote tolerance in the community. They also want officials to step up efforts to make the city more secure for immigrants as well as the native Finnish population.
This latest racially-flavoured incident has been a pause for reflection for inhabitants, as it was preceded by two other violent acts involving foreigners.
Earlier this winter a newspaper deliveryman sustained serious injuries when he fled a hostile situation by jumping from a balcony. A similar situation occurred a few weeks later when a young man died after falling from the sixth floor when trying to flee a bad situation. While police say neither event was the direct result of xenophobia, altercations with Finns preceded both incidents.
Online debates on racism in Finland have raged since a local Finns Party councilman praised last week’s pizzeria shooter. Finns party leader, Timo Soini, said the man was likely to be expelled over the comment.
A similar procession was held in Helsinki on Friday, moving from the Central Railway Station to the Parliament House.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Nigerian email scams have become nearly as commonplace as the Internet itself. But one Australian woman wound up in jail after turning the tables–to the tune of $30,000–on a group of con artists.
The Courier-Mail reports that Sarah Jane Cochrane-Ramsey, 23, was employed as an “agent” in March 2010 by the Nigerians, but didn’t know they were scam artists. Her “job” was to provide access to an Australian bank account opened in her name where the Nigerians could then transfer money they had received from a phony car sales website. Cochrane-Ramsey was told she could keep eight percent of the transfers.
But, then she decided to steal from the thieves themselves. According to the Courier-Mail, she received two payments, totaling $33,350, but spent most of it on herself.
If you’re not familiar with the so-called Nigerian Scam, also known as the (419) scam, or Advanced Fee Fraud, here’s a brief explainer: the fraud works by convincing an individual to give money and/or bank account access to a third-party in exchange for future financial rewards.
Most commonly, the scam artist will claim to be a wealthy Nigerian individual looking to move his vast financial resources to another country. He then promises the fraud victim a hefty payment in exchange for a temporary loan or bank account access in order to facilitate the move. Of course, the fraud victim never receives the promised payout and instead usually ends up losing thousands of dollars in the process. According to Scam Busters, the Advance Fee Fraud scams often target small businesses and charities. And while the scam has been around for years, the U.S. Financial Crimes Division of the Secret Service still receives a reported 100 calls a day from people claiming to be victims of a (419) crime.
But, back to the Cochrane-Ramsey case. The real victims who thought they were buying cars online reported the scam to the police, who traced the account back to Cochrane-Ramsey. She was ordered to appear in Brisbane District Court and plead guilty to one count of aggravated fraud.
For now, the court judge is allowing Cochrane-Ramsey time to come up with the money to pay off the fraud victims while she awaits sentencing in March.
Interestingly, Cochrane-Ramsey is not the first person to turn the tables on Nigerian scammers. In 2008, the radio program This American Life ran a story on some anonymous pranksters who sent a Nigerian scam artist on a wild goose chase that spanned 1,400-miles into war-torn Chad for a promised cash payout at a local Western Union branch.
And they convinced him to do this while carrying an anti-Muslim/pro-George W. Bush note, which stated his intention to rob the Western Union. Their entire plan was spelled out on this website, dedicated to turning the tables on Internet con artists (Warning: contains Not Safe for Work language).
You can listen to the episode of This American Life here.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
