419legal.org and the South African Police Service (SAPS) wish to make it clear that at no point in time was any member of the 419legal.org administration contacted by the writer in conjunction with information published in the above mentioned article.
We want to point out that comments in the article that states the SAPS recruits members of the public to hunt and hand over scammers is not accurate. 419legal.org and SAPS do accept information offered from members of the public that may identify scammers located in South Africa. We also accept information about scammers located in other countries and endevaour to pass on information to other law enforcement bodies. We do not however recruit either formally or informally members of the public for such purposes.
The term Bounty Hunters as used in the article makes an assertion to the reader that 419legal.org offers financial incentive for information. This is not the case. 419legal.org is staffed by volunteers from both the SAPS and public sectors. 419legal.org also does not request or accept money for information or advice given in public and in private.
The two people whom the reporter made reference to in the article Nick and NN may or may not be members of the public forum but the article does fail to point out that these two persons do not have any authority to make statements for or on behalf of SAPS, 419legal.org or its administration. Likewise Nick and NN, or any other persons who chose to communicate with internet scammers do so on their own initiative.
It disturbs our administration that the reporter clearly made no effort to confirm or check facts with authorised members of the 419legal.org administration. Our website has a clear and defined way of making contact with us. The index page has a link to an online contact form that is frequently checked for submissions. If this way of making contact was seen as inefficient, there are a number of members with the correct authority to make statements on behalf of 419legal.org who are active on the public forum and if the reporter made a post asking for one of our administration to make contact, then we would have happily complied.
419legal.org and its administration have never failed to reply to a request for information from anyone who identifies themselves as members of the press.
419legal.org and SAPS want to make clear that we do not condone hacking or any other illegal act performed, likewise information that is found through such means is not admissible should a conviction be sought.
419legal.org and SAPS request that a public clarification be published and attached to the original article by the reporter in any medium that this or any other similar article was published. This includes but is not limited to print, online or any other form.
Steve Marsh (oz_baiter)
Forum Administrator
419legal.org
This press release can be freely distributed on the condition it is reprinted in full without modification of any sort. Queries for more information can be sought by using the 419legal.org Contact Us form located in the left navigation bar on the main portal page here
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Posted on Friday, 23 June 2006 @ 09:58:56 UTC by Paul (1806 reads) [ Trackback ]
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