title: Jagame Thandhiram

text: "Jagame Thandhiram" was in the news for controversies surrounding over the release plans, whether the film was speculated to have a digital or theatrical release. Dhanush was upset over producer Sashikanth, as the latter accepted for digital release, irrespective of theatres being reopened and operated with 50% seating capacity due to the pandemic restrictions. This caused a rift between Dhanush and Sashikanth, as the producer unfollowed Dhanush in Twitter and Instagram. After the central government granted permission to increase the seating capacity in theatres, on 1 February 2021, Dhanush took to Twitter the following day, 2 February, stating the demand for theatrical release in support of theatre owners and distributors. Similarly, their fans also demanded the film's theatrical release by sticking wall posters across Tamil Nadu. However, Sashikanth continued negotiating with Netflix for digital release.


title: Jagame Thandhiram

text: With the film's teaser released on 22 February 2021, confirming the digital release through Netflix, fans of Dhanush expressed their disappointment as they intended to watch the film in theatres, despite the teaser being positively received by fans. Dhanush decided to stay out of the film's promotional activities online, after being upset with the producer's decision for digital release, although he shared the film's trailer through his tweet expressing his unhappiness over the film releasing on Netflix and not in theatres. Similarly, YNOT Studios faced a red card from the distributors, in response to the issue, resulting in their other projects "Aelay" and "Mandela" being released through online platforms.


title: Jagame Thandhiram

text: The film received mixed to positive reviews from critics and audiences. Natalia Winkelman of "New York Times" called the screenplay (by Karthik Subbaraj) elevated the "usual crime antics by drawing attention to language, and how it can be used as a weapon or a unifier". She added that few sequences in the film feel "fresh", but called the movie's patterns "familiar". M. Suganth of "The Times of India" rated three of five stars for the film and called few sequences in the first half, featuring Dhanush "interesting", but criticised the slow-paced second half of the film. He also commented that "Subbaraj used the struggle of Eelam Tamils to add depth", but criticised that the attempt "does not make the scenes moving". Srivatsan S of "The Hindu" opined that Karthik Subbaraj wanted to have a bit of everything in the film, which is "a drama with an ultra-cool gangster (Dhanush) at the centre", "a serious political film dealing with a global issue", and "a stylishly-shot bubblegum film with a carefree attitude", but called that it "does not quite achieve the desired results".


title: Jagame Thandhiram

text: Saibal Chatterjee of "NDTV" rated two-and-a-half out of five, calling that "the tedium is lessened by the ebullience of Dhanush and the solidity of Joju George". He further praised James Cosmo's performance as it "makes the most of the over-the-top quality of the larger-than-life villain". Sudhir Srinivasan of "The New Indian Express" called "Jagame Thandhiram" as "Karthik Subbaraj's weakest film", but praised the other technical aspects of the film such as music, cinematography and picturisation. He added this film as like "Karthik Subbaraj's desire to make two different Tamil films set in the West", with one, a solemn film like "Iraivi" that would bleed for "immigrants, refugees and Eelam Tamils". Nandini Ramanath of "Scroll.in" called that "overstuffed with Subbaraj's trademark flourishes, "Jagame Thandhiram" seeks to be something more than a gangster movie"; she praised Dhanush's performance in the film as "magnetic, as the messiah of immigrants", while also calling Cosmo as "the archvillain whose bark is worse than his bite" and George as "dignified as the Robin Hood of the British underworld".


title: Jagame Thandhiram

text: In a contrasting review, "Firstpost"-based critic Ranjani Krishnakumar gave one star for the film, calling it as "confused", "self-indulgent", and "inconsiderate". She pointed that the film did not make up its mind between "being an empathetic story about xenophobia" or a "massy gangster film about a borderline psychopath", though it has "moments of both neither building on the other, ends up as a silly mess". Haricharan Pudipeddi of "Hindustan Times" stated that "Karthik Subaraj tried to pull a "Kabali" with Dhanush, but it disappoints big time". He further criticised the casting of foreign actors and the editing, being "chopped and stitched together in a way that some scenes absolutely make no sense". "The News Minute" editor-in-chief, Sowmya Rajendran, gave three out of five stars saying "There are some wildly fun moments in the film, but they don't add up to give us anything meaningful". Umesh Punwani of "Koimoi" rated two-and-a-half out of five stars and opined that the film "had the potential to define new benchmarks, but ended up choosing between its conflict".


title: Jagame Thandhiram

text: Shubhra Gupta of "The Indian Express" rated two-and-a-half out of five saying, "Dhanush-in-veshti strides across sleety England streets in slo-mo, doing Rajini but wisely keeping it low key, channelling the street-smart, lovable scamp he specialises in, when not going all out gangsta familiar to us from such cracking films as "Vada Chennai"." Sajesh Mohan of "Manorama Online" gave three out of five saying ""Jagame Thandhiram" could not be considered equal to Pa. Ranjith's "Kaala" or "Kabali", where the director used the popular figure of Rajinikanth and his "Style Mannan" avatar to drive home a political and ideological point. But it definitely will hold its place." Baradwaj Rangan of "Film Companion South" called the film, based on an important issue, is "flamboyantly" but "generically" made, which could have been "Suruli's coming-of-age story, about him wrapping his head around the refugee crisis". Writing for the same website, Vishal Menon called the film's "righteous self-importance just does not fit into the world it tries to build for itself".


title: John McWhorter

text: John Hamilton McWhorter V (; born October 6, 1965) is an American linguist with a specialty in creole languages, sociolects, and Black English. He is currently associate professor of linguistics at Columbia University, where he also teaches American studies and music history. He has also authored books on race relations and African-American culture.


title: John McWhorter

text: McWhorter was born and raised in Philadelphia. His father, John Hamilton McWhorter IV (1927–1996), was a college administrator, and his mother, Schelysture Gordon McWhorter (1937–2011), taught social work at Temple University. He attended Friends Select School in Philadelphia and after tenth grade was accepted to Simon's Rock College where he earned an AA degree. Later, he attended Rutgers University and received a BA degree in French in 1985. He obtained an MA degree in American Studies from New York University and a PhD degree in Linguistics in 1993 from Stanford University.


title: John McWhorter

text: McWhorter was an associate professor of linguistics at Cornell University from 1993 to 1995, then an associate professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1995 until 2003. He left that position to become a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. Since 2008, he has taught linguistics, American studies, and classes in the core curriculum program at Columbia University. As Columbia's Department of Linguistics had been dissolved in 1989, McWhorter was initially assigned to the Department of English and Comparative Literature. The Program of Linguistics (including a revived undergraduate major as of 2021) is currently housed in the Department of Slavic Languages.


title: John McWhorter

text: McWhorter is the author of the courses "The Story of Human Language"; "Understanding Linguistics: The Science of Language"; "Myths, Lies and Half-Truths About English Usage"; "Language Families of the World"; and "Language From A to Z" in the series The Great Courses, produced by the Teaching Company.


title: John McWhorter

text: McWhorter has written for "Time", "The Wall Street Journal", "The Chronicle of Higher Education", "The Washington Post", "The New Republic", "Politico", "Forbes", "The Chicago Tribune", "The New York Daily News", "City Journal", "The New York Sun", "The New Yorker", "The Root", "The Daily Beast", and CNN. He is a contributing editor at "The Atlantic" and, after writing op-eds for "The New York Times" for several years, became an Opinion columnist there in 2021. He hosts the "Lexicon Valley" podcast — for "Slate" from 2016 to 2021, and currently for Booksmart Studios. He was contributing editor at "The New Republic" from 2001 to 2014. McWhorter has published a number of books on linguistics and on race relations, including "Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language", "Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English", "Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why You Should, Like, Care", and "".


title: John McWhorter

text: Much of McWhorter's academic work is concerned with creole languages and their relationship to other languages, often focusing on the Suriname creole language Saramaccan. His work has expanded to a general investigation of the effect of second-language acquisition on a language. He argues that languages naturally tend toward complexity and irregularity, a tendency that is reversed only by adults acquiring the language, and creole formation is simply an extreme example of the latter. As examples, he cites English, Mandarin Chinese, Persian, the modern colloquial varieties of Arabic, Swahili, and Indonesian. He has outlined his ideas in academic format in "Language Interrupted" and "Linguistic Simplicity and Complexity" and, for the general public, in "What Language Is" and "Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue". Some other linguists suggest that his notions of simplicity and complexity are impressionistic and grounded on comparisons with European languages, and they point to exceptions to his proposed correlations.


title: John McWhorter

text: McWhorter is a vocal critic of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis. In "The Language Hoax", he outlines how, despite the fact language influences thought in an "infinitesimal way", and culture is expressed through language, language itself does not create different ways of thinking or determine world views.


title: John McWhorter

text: McWhorter has also been a proponent of a theory that various languages on the island of Flores underwent transformation because of aggressive migrations from the nearby island of Sulawesi, and he has contended that English was influenced by the Celtic languages spoken by the indigenous population and which were then encountered by the Germanic invaders of Britain. He has also written various articles that argue that colloquial constructions, such as the modern uses of "like" and "totally", and other non-standard speech should be considered alternative renditions of English rather than degraded ones.


title: John McWhorter

text: Regarding the various positions arising from the universal grammar debate, he describes himself as partial to the theoretical frameworks of Peter Culicover and Ray Jackendoff.


title: John McWhorter

text: In January 2017, McWhorter was a speaker in the Linguistic Society of America's inaugural Public Lectures on Language series.


title: John McWhorter

text: McWhorter is proficient in French and Spanish, reads Russian well, and has some competence in several other languages.


title: John McWhorter

text: McWhorter has two daughters. He separated from his wife in 2019. He plays the piano and has appeared in musical theater productions.


title: John McWhorter

text: McWhorter characterizes himself as "a cranky liberal Democrat". In support of this description, he states that while he "disagree[s] sustainedly with many of the tenets of the Civil Rights orthodoxy", he also "supports Barack Obama, reviles the War on Drugs, supports gay marriage, never voted for George Bush and writes of Black English as coherent speech". McWhorter additionally notes that the conservative Manhattan Institute, for which he worked, "has always been hospitable to Democrats". McWhorter has criticized left-wing and activist educators in particular, such as Paulo Freire and Jonathan Kozol. He believes that affirmative action should be based on class rather than race. Political theorist Mark Satin identifies McWhorter as a radical centrist thinker. McWhorter is an atheist.


title: John McWhorter

text: In a 2001 article, McWhorter wrote that black attitudes, rather than white racism, were what held African Americans back in the United States. According to McWhorter, "victimology, separatism, and anti-intellectualism underlie the general black community's response to all race-related issues", and "it's time for well-intentioned whites to stop pardoning as 'understandable' the worst of human nature whenever black people exhibit it".


title: John McWhorter

text: In April 2015, McWhorter appeared on NPR and said that the use of the word "thug" was becoming code for "the N-word" or "black people ruining things" when used by whites in reference to criminal activity. He added that use by President Barack Obama and former Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (for which she later apologized) could not be interpreted in the same way, given that the black community's use of "thug" may connote admiration for black self-direction and survival. McWhorter clarified his views in an article in "The Washington Post".


title: John McWhorter

text: McWhorter has criticized the term "microaggression", as well as what he regards as the overly casual conflation of racial bias with white supremacy.


title: John McWhorter

text: McWhorter has argued that software algorithms, by themselves, cannot be racist since, unlike humans, they lack intention. Rather, unless the human engineers behind a technological product intend for it to discriminate against black people, any unintentional bias should be seen as a software bug that needs to be fixed ("an obstacle to achievement") rather than an issue of racism.


title: John McWhorter

text: McWhorter criticized Robin DiAngelo's 2018 book "White Fragility" following its resurgence in sales during the George Floyd protests beginning in May 2020, arguing that it "openly infantilized Black people" and "simply dehumanized us", and "does not see fit to address why all of this agonizing soul-searching [for residual racism by white people] is necessary to forging change in society. One might ask just how a people can be poised for making change when they have been taught that pretty much anything they say or think is racist and thus antithetical to the good."


title: John McWhorter

text: In his 2021 book "Woke Racism", McWhorter expands upon these viewpoints and argues that "third wave anti-racism" is a religion he terms "Electism" with white privilege as original sin. McWhorter likens the books "White Fragility", "How to Be an Antiracist" and "Between the World and Me" to sacred religious texts. He argues that this hypothesized status as a religion explains the behavior of its adherents, whom he calls "the Elect". He advises that since the faith, being a faith, is not open to discussion, arguments with its adherents should be avoided in favor of pragmatic action against racism. McWhorter advocates three programs: ending the war on drugs, teaching reading by phonics to children lacking books at home, and free vocational education, promoting the idea that not everyone needs a four-year college education to succeed.


title: Madlib

text: Otis Jackson Jr. (born October 24, 1973), known professionally as Madlib, is an American DJ, music producer, multi-instrumentalist, and rapper. He is widely known for his collaborations with MF DOOM (as Madvillain), J Dilla (as Jaylib), and Freddie Gibbs (as MadGibbs). Madlib has described himself as a "DJ first, producer second, and MC last." His stage name is an acronym for "Mind Altering Demented Lessons In Beats".


title: Madlib

text: Otis Jackson Jr. was born on October 24, 1973, in Oxnard, California, to musician parents Otis Jackson, Sr. and Dora Sinesca Jackson. He sampled his first song at 11 years old, sourced from his father's collection. His younger brother is the producer and rapper Michael "Oh No" Jackson. His uncle is the jazz trumpeter Jon Faddis. He was raised in Oxnard, where he began his music career.


title: Madlib

text: In the early 1990s, Madlib formed a loose-knit collective composed of rappers who worked with him in his Oxnard-based "Crate Diggas Palace" studio. This collective was composed primarily of his friends, and became known as CDP. The crew included affiliated artists such as Madlib's younger brother Oh No, Kankick, Dudley Perkins aka Declaime, M.E.D. aka Medaphor, and others. Madlib's first commercially released music was production for the rap group Tha Alkaholiks in 1993. He went on to record music of his own with the group Lootpack. Their 12-inch EP "Psyche Move" was released by Madlib's father in 1995 on a label also called Crate Diggas Palace. This record caught the attention of Peanut Butter Wolf, founder of the Stones Throw Records label, who signed the group in 1998.


title: Madlib

text: Lootpack's 1999 debut album "" ushered in a string of releases on Stones Throw centering on Madlib's production work which would continue for a decade. His first solo work, "The Unseen", under the guise of Quasimoto, came in 2000. The album was met with critical acclaim and named by "Spin" as one of the top 20 albums of the year.


title: Madlib

text: In 2001, Madlib moved away from hip hop music and began a series of releases from Yesterdays New Quintet, a jazz-based, hip hop and electronic-influenced quintet made up of alter-egos or fictional musicians played by Madlib. Over the next several years, through several record releases on Stones Throw and other labels, the growing number of pseudonyms and fictional players came to be known as Yesterdays Universe. Madlib was later invited to remix tracks from the Blue Note Records archive in 2003, which he released as "Shades of Blue". In addition to the remixes, the album contained newly recorded interpretations of Blue Note originals, many of which were credited to members of Yesterdays New Quintet. Beginning with the 2007 album "The Funky Side of Life" by Yesterdays New Quintet spin-off group Sound Directions, the Yesterdays Universe also began incorporating additional session musicians who were not pseudonyms of Madlib.


title: Madlib

text: Returning to hip hop music in 2003, Madlib announced two collaborative projects. He joined hip hop producer J Dilla in a duo known as Jaylib, which released "Champion Sound". Madlib then collaborated with rapper MF DOOM, known together as Madvillain. Produced by using a Boss SP-303 and a turntable, their 2004 album "Madvillainy" was highly anticipated and well-received, topping many critics' year-end lists.


title: Madlib

text: The 2005 Quasimoto album "The Further Adventures of Lord Quas" met with warm reception and continued the Quasimoto tradition of using vocal samples from Melvin Van Peebles, who is credited on the album liner notes as a collaborator. Throughout the rest of the decade Madlib continued to release jazz material simultaneously with his hip hop work: "Perseverance" with Percee P, "Liberation" with Talib Kweli, "Sujinho" with Ivan Conti of Azymuth, his own instrumental hip hop series Beat Konducta, "In Search of Stoney Jackson" with Strong Arm Steady, "O. J. Simpson" with Guilty Simpson, and production work for artists such as Erykah Badu and De La Soul.


title: Madlib

text: In 2010, Madlib announced his own imprint called Madlib Invazion, formed to release a music series called Madlib Medicine Show. The series would ultimately take over two years to complete, culminating with 13 album releases and several vinyl-only EPs spanning hip hop, jazz, remixes, and multi-genre DJ mixtapes. The label has continued to release records outside of the original series. In 2011, Madlib composed the film score for the A Tribe Called Quest documentary film "". Madlib also produced "Cadillacs" with Snoop Dogg for his mixtape "That's My Work Volume 3", released on February 27, 2014.


title: Madlib

text: Freddie Gibbs and Madlib announced plans for a collaboration album late in 2011 with the release of an EP titled "Thuggin", which was followed by a second EP titled "Shame" on June 22, 2012 and a third EP titled "Deeper" on September 24, 2013. The duo's full-length collaboration album "Piñata" was released on March 18, 2014 to widespread critical acclaim. The pair, later known as MadGibbs, released a follow-up album titled "Bandana" on June 28, 2019.


title: Madlib

text: In a 2010 interview with LA Weekly, Madlib stated that Kanye West put five of his beats on hold for the album he was working on at the time. While none of the beats were used, Madlib did take part in the recording sessions for the album, which evolved from "Good Ass Job" to "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy". He was also rumored to be involved in West's collaboration album with Jay-Z entitled "Watch the Throne", but ultimately was not. West was interviewed as part of the 2014 Stones Throw documentary film "Our Vinyl Weighs A Ton", in which he opens up about working with Madlib and wanting more of his beats for future projects.


title: Madlib

text: On January 18, 2016, West released the Madlib-produced "No More Parties in L.A." featuring Kendrick Lamar on SoundCloud as part of his GOOD Fridays series. According to reports, the track originated from the recording sessions for "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" in 2010. West also recited a few lines from the track in the "Our Vinyl Weighs A Ton" interview. "No More Parties in L.A." appears on his seventh album, which underwent several name changes: "So Help Me God", "SWISH", and "Waves", before finally being released as "The Life of Pablo" on February 12, 2016. West also hinted at the possibility of future collaborations with Madlib via Twitter thanking him for sending over six beat CDs.


title: Madlib

text: Following Mac Miller's death, Chicago producer Thelonious Martin claimed on February 20, 2019, that Mac Miller and Madlib were reportedly working on an album together, called MacLib. Madlib addressed this statement on March 19, 2019, stating that he had recorded an EP with Mac Miller between 2015 and 2017, but that there were no plans of releasing the EP. However, Madlib added during an interview on June 3, 2019, that if Mac Miller's estate gives him the right to, he will release the EP. On February 8, 2020, a MacLib song was leaked.


title: Madlib

text: In January 2021, in an interview with The Guardian, Madlib revealed he missed the opportunity to join forces with Kendrick Lamar on his 2015 album, "To Pimp a Butterfly".


title: Madlib

text: On April 23, 2021, fellow rapper Logic released "Mars Only pt. 3," a collaboration between him and Madlib, on his YouTube channel under the name Madgic.


title: Madlib

text: During an interview on Chrome Children, Madlib stated that his most significant musical influences include Miles Davis, Sun Ra, and David Axelrod. Some of his hip hop influences are Large Professor, Marley Marl, Paul C, DJ Pooh, and Dr. Dre.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: An advance-fee scam is a form of fraud and is one of the most common types of confidence tricks. The scam typically involves promising the victim a significant share of a large sum of money, in return for a small up-front payment, which the fraudster claims will be used to obtain the large sum. If a victim makes the payment, the fraudster either invents a series of further fees for the victim to pay or simply disappears.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) states that "An advance fee scheme occurs when the victim pays money to someone in anticipation of receiving something of greater value - such as a loan, contract, investment, or gift - and then receives little or nothing in return." There are many variations of this type of scam, including the Nigerian prince scam, also known as a 419 scam. The number "419" refers to the section of the Nigerian Criminal Code dealing with fraud and the charges and penalties for such offenders. The scam has been used with fax and traditional mail and is now prevalent in online communications like emails. Other variations include the Spanish Prisoner scam and the black money scam.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Although Nigeria is most often the nation referred to in these scams, they mainly originate in other nations. Other nations known to have a high incidence of advance-fee fraud include: Ivory Coast, Togo, South Africa, the Netherlands, Spain, Poland, and Jamaica.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: The modern scam is similar to the Spanish Prisoner scam that dates back to the late 18th century. In that con, businessmen were contacted by an individual allegedly trying to smuggle someone who is connected to a wealthy family out of a prison in Spain. In exchange for assistance, the scammer promised to share money with the victim in exchange for a small amount of money to bribe prison guards.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: One variant of the scam may date back to the 18th or 19th century, as a very similar letter, entitled "The Letter from Jerusalem." This is illustrated in the memoirs of Eugène François Vidocq, a former French criminal and private investigator. Another variant of the scam, dating back to ca. 1830, appears very similar to emails today: "Sir, you will doubtlessly be astonished to be receiving a letter from a person unknown to you, who is about to ask a favour from you..." and goes on to talk of a casket containing 16,000 francs in gold and the diamonds of a late marchioness.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: The modern day transnational scam can be traced back to Germany in 1922 and became popular during the 1980s. There are many variants of the template letter. One of these, sent via postal mail, was addressed to a woman's husband to inquire about his health. It then asked what to do with profits from a $24.6 million investment and ended with a telephone number.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Other official-looking letters were sent from a writer who said he was a director of the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation. He said he wanted to transfer $20 million to the recipient's bank account—money that was budgeted but was never spent. In exchange for transferring the funds out of Nigeria, the recipient would keep 30% of the total. To get the process started, the scammer asked for a few sheets of the company's letterhead, bank account numbers, and other personal information. Yet other variants have involved mention of a Nigerian prince or other member of a royal family seeking to transfer large sums of money out of the country—thus, these scams are sometimes called "Nigerian Prince emails".


title: Advance-fee scam

text: The spread of e-mail and email harvesting software significantly lowered the cost of sending scam letters by using the Internet in lieu of international post. Nigeria is most often the nation referred to in these scams, they may originate in other nations as well. For example, in 2007, the head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission stated that scam emails more frequently originated in African countries or in Eastern Europe. Within the European Union, there is a high incidence of advance-fee fraud in the Netherlands and Spain.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: According to Cormac Herley, a Microsoft researcher, "By sending an email that repels all but the most gullible, the scammer gets the most promising marks to self-select." Responding to Herley, a director at Nigeria's National Security Adviser said that there are more non-Nigerian scammers claiming to be Nigerian, and suggested that Nigeria's reputation for corruption is part of the allure that makes scams seem more plausible. Nigeria has a reputation for being at the center of email scammers.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Modern variations include “sugar daddy/sugar momma” schemes, some of which involve advance-fee scamming, and money flipping, whereby the mark is promised a large amount of money in exchange for sending a small amount of money.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: A 2018 study of Nigerian hip-hop culture found that glamorization of cyber-fraud is prevalent in such music. Some scammers have accomplices in the United States and abroad who move in to finish the deal once the initial contact has been made.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Many scammers tend to come from poorer and more-educated backgrounds, where Internet access and better education, along with inability to afford basic necessities, drive people into committing online fraud. They were also influenced by social media celebrities and artists who promote scamming as a "cool" trend to quickly gain access to luxury items like sports cars and fashion.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: In the case of Nigeria, the rise in scamming cases was due to a boom in cybercafes, a series of economic crashes from the 1980s, and the resulting joblessness among young people in Nigeria.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: This scam usually begins with the perpetrator contacting the victim via email, instant messaging, or social media using a fake email address or a fake social media account. The fraudster then makes an offer that would allegedly result in a large payoff for the victim.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: An email subject line may say something like "From the desk of barrister <nowiki>[</nowiki>Name<nowiki>]</nowiki>", "Your assistance is needed", "Important", "Dear Sir or Madam" and so on. The details vary, but the usual story is that a person, often a government or bank employee, knows of a large amount of unclaimed money or gold that they cannot access directly, usually because they have no right to it.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Such people, who may be real people being impersonated by the scammer or fictitious characters played by the con artist, could include, for example, the wife or son of a deposed African leader who has amassed a stolen fortune, a bank employee who knows of a terminally ill wealthy person with no relatives or a wealthy foreigner who deposited money in the bank just before dying in a plane crash (leaving no will or known next of kin), a US soldier who has stumbled upon a hidden cache of gold in Iraq, a business being audited by the government, a disgruntled worker or corrupt government official who has embezzled funds, a refugee, and similar characters.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: The money could be in the form of gold bullion, gold dust, money in a bank account, blood diamonds, a series of cheques or bank drafts, so on and so forth. The sums involved are usually in the millions of dollars, and the investor is promised a large share, typically ten to fifty percent, in return for assisting the fraudster to retrieve or expatriate the money. Although the vast majority of recipients do not respond to these emails, a small percentage do, enough to make the scam worthwhile as many millions of messages can be sent daily.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: To help persuade the victim to agree to the deal, the scammer often sends one or more false documents that bear official government stamps, and seals. 419 scammers often mention false addresses and use photographs taken from the Internet or from magazines to falsely represent themselves. Often, a photograph used by a scammer is not a picture of any person involved in the scheme. Multiple "people" may write or be involved in schemes as they continue, but they are often fictitious; in many cases, one person controls all the fictitious personae used in scams.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Once the victim's confidence has been gained, the scammer then introduces a delay or monetary hurdle that prevents the deal from occurring as planned, such as "To transmit the money, we need to bribe a bank official. Could you help us with a loan?" or "For you to be a party to the transaction, you must have holdings at a Nigerian bank of $100,000 or more" or similar. This is the money being stolen from the victim; the victim willingly transfers the money, usually through some irreversible channel such as a wire transfer, and the scammer receives and pockets it.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Often but not always, delays and additional costs are added by the fraudster, always keeping the promise of an imminent large transfer alive, convincing the victim that the money the victim is currently paying would be covered several times over by the payoff. The implication that these payments will be used for white-collar crime, such as bribery, and even that the money they are being promised is being stolen from a government or royal/wealthy family, often prevents the victim from telling others about the "transaction", as it would involve admitting that they intended to be complicit in an international crime.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Sometimes psychological pressure is added by claiming that the scammers' side, to pay certain fees, had to sell belongings and mortgage a house or by comparing the salary scale and living conditions in their country to those in the West. Much of the time, however, the needed psychological pressure is self-applied: once the victims have provided money toward the payoff, they feel they have a vested interest in seeing the "deal" through. Some victims even believe they can cheat the other party, and walk away with all the money instead of just the percentage they were promised.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: The essential fact in all advance-fee fraud operations is the promised money transfer to the victim never happens because the money does not exist. The perpetrators rely on the fact that, by the time the victim realizes this (often only after being confronted by a third party who has noticed the transactions or conversation and recognized the scam), the victim may have sent thousands of dollars of their own money. Sometimes thousands more that has been borrowed or stolen to the scammer via an untraceable and/or irreversible means such as wire transfer. The scammer disappears, and the victim is left on the hook for the money sent to the scammer.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: During the course of many schemes, scammers ask victims to supply bank account information. Usually this is a "test" devised by the scammer to gauge the victim's gullibility; the bank account information isn't used directly by the scammer, because a fraudulent withdrawal from the account is more easily detected, reversed, and traced. Scammers instead usually request that payments be made using a wire transfer service like Western Union and MoneyGram. The reason given by the scammer usually relates to the speed at which the payment can be received and processed, allowing quick release of the supposed payoff. The real reason for using such money-sending services is that such wire transfers are irreversible and often untraceable. Further, these services are ideal because identification beyond knowledge of the details of the transaction is often not required, making receipt of such funds almost or entirely completely anonymous. However, bank account information obtained by scammers is sometimes sold in bulk to other fraudsters who wait a few months for the victim to repair the damage caused by the initial scam before raiding any accounts that the victim didn't close.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Telephone numbers used by scammers tend to come from burner phones. In Ivory Coast, a scammer may purchase an inexpensive mobile phone and a pre-paid SIM card without submitting any identifying information. If the scammers believe they are being traced, they discard their mobile phones and purchase new ones.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: The spam emails used in these scams are often sent from Internet cafés equipped with satellite internet connection. Recipient addresses and email content are copied and pasted into a webmail interface using a stand-alone storage medium, such as a memory card. Certain areas of Lagos, such as Festac, contain many cyber cafés that serve scammers; cyber cafés often seal their doors outside hours, such as from 10:30pm to 7:00am, so that scammers inside may work without fear of discovery.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Nigeria also contains many businesses that provide false documents used in scams. After a scam involving a forged signature of Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo in summer 2005, Nigerian authorities raided a market in the Oluwole section of Lagos. There, police seized thousands of Nigerian and non-Nigerian passports, 10,000 blank British Airways boarding passes, 10,000 United States Postal money orders, customs documents, false university certificates, 500 printing plates, and 500 computers.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: The "success rate" of the scammers is also hard to gauge, since they are operating illegally and do not keep track of specific numbers. One individual estimated he sent 500 emails per day and received about seven replies, citing that when he received a reply, he was 70 percent certain he would get the money. If tens of thousands of emails are sent every day by thousands of individuals, it doesn't take a very high success rate to be worthwhile.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: In recent years, efforts have been made by governments, internet companies, and individuals to combat scammers involved in advance-fee fraud and 419 scams. In 2004, the Nigerian government formed the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to combat economic and financial crimes, such as advanced-fee fraud. In 2009, Nigeria's EFCC announced that they have adopted smart technology developed by Microsoft to track down fraudulent emails. They hoped to have the service, dubbed "Eagle Claw", running at full capacity to warn a quarter of a million potential victims.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Some individuals participate in a practice known as scam baiting, in which they pose as potential targets and engage the scammers in lengthy dialogue so as to waste the scammer's time and decrease the time they have available for actual victims. Likewise, Artists Against 419, was set-up by volunteers and offers a public database with information on scam websites. They work closely together with APWG to share their data with financial institutions and cybersecurity companies.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: A central element of advance-fee fraud is that the transaction from the victim to the scammer must be untraceable and irreversible. Otherwise, the victim, once they become aware of the scam, could successfully retrieve their money and alert officials who could track the accounts used by the scammer.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Wire transfers via Western Union and MoneyGram are ideal for this purpose. International wire transfers cannot be cancelled or reversed, and the person receiving the money cannot be tracked. Other non-cancellable forms of payment include postal money orders and cashier's cheques, but wire transfer via Western Union or MoneyGram is more common.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Since the scammer's operations must be untraceable to avoid identification, and because the scammer is often impersonating someone else, any communication between the scammer and his victim must be done through channels that hide the scammer's true identity. The following options in particular are widely used.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Because many free email services do not require valid identifying information and also allow communication with many victims in a short span of time, they are the preferred method of communication for scammers. Some services go so far as to mask the sender's source IP address (Gmail being a common choice), making the scammer's country of origin more difficult to trace. While Gmail does indeed strip headers from emails, it is possible to trace an IP address from such an email. Scammers can create as many accounts as they wish and often have several at a time. In addition, if email providers are alerted to the scammer's activities and suspend the account, it is a trivial matter for the scammer to simply create a new account to resume scamming.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Some fraudsters hijack existing email accounts and use them for advance-fee fraud purposes. For instance, with social engineering, the fraudster impersonates associates, friends, or family members of the legitimate account owner in an attempt to defraud them. A variety of techniques such as phishing, keyloggers, and computer viruses are used to gain login information for the email address.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Facsimile machines are commonly used tools of business whenever a client requires a hard copy of a document. They can also be simulated using web services and made untraceable by the use of prepaid phones connected to mobile fax machines or by use of a public fax machine such as one owned by a document processing business like FedEx Office/Kinko's. Thus, scammers posing as business entities often use fax transmissions as an anonymous form of communication. This is more expensive, as the prepaid phone and fax equipment cost more than email, but to a skeptical victim, it can be more believable.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Abusing SMS bulk senders such as WASPs, scammers subscribe to these services using fraudulent registration details and paying either via cash or with stolen credit card details. They then send out masses of unsolicited SMS messages to victims stating they have won a competition, lottery, reward, or an event and that they have to contact somebody to claim their prize. Typically the details of the party to be contacted will be an equally untraceable email address or a virtual telephone number.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: These messages may be sent over a weekend when the staff at the service providers are not working, enabling the scammer to be able to abuse the services for a whole weekend. Even when traceable, they give out long and winding procedures for procuring the reward (real or unreal) and that too with the impending huge cost of transportation and tax or duty charges. The origin of such SMS messages is often from fake websites/addresses.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: A contemporary (mid-2011) innovation is the use of a Premium Rate 'call back' number (instead of a website or email) in the SMS. On calling the number, the victim is first reassured that 'they are a winner' and then subjected to a long series of instructions on how to collect their 'winnings'. During the message, there will be frequent instructions to 'ring back in the event of problems'. The call is always 'cut off' just before the victim has the chance to note all the details. Some victims call back multiple times in an effort to collect all the details. The scammer thus makes their money out of the fees charged for the calls.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Many scams use telephone calls to convince the victim that the person on the other end of the deal is a real, truthful person. The scammer, possibly impersonating a person of a nationality or gender other than their own, would arouse suspicion by telephoning the victim. In these cases, scammers use TRS, a US federally funded relay service where an operator or a text/speech translation program acts as an intermediary between someone using an ordinary telephone and a deaf caller using TDD or other teleprinter device. The scammer may claim they are deaf, and that they must use a relay service. The victim, possibly drawn in by sympathy for a disabled caller, might be more susceptible to the fraud.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: FCC regulations and confidentiality laws require operators to relay calls verbatim and adhere to a strict code of confidentiality and ethics. Thus, no relay operator may judge the legality and legitimacy of a relay call and must relay it without interference. This means the relay operator may not warn victims, even when they suspect the call is a scam. MCI said about one percent of their IP Relay calls in 2004 were scams.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Tracking phone-based relay services is relatively easy, so scammers tend to prefer Internet Protocol-based relay services such as IP Relay. In a common strategy, they bind their overseas IP address to a router or server located on US soil, allowing them to use US-based relay service providers without interference.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: TRS is sometimes used to relay credit card information to make a fraudulent purchase with a stolen credit card. In many cases however, it is simply a means for the con artist to further lure the victim into the scam.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Sometimes, victims are invited to a country to meet government officials, an associate of the scammer, or the scammer themselves. Some victims who travel are instead held for ransom. Scammers may tell a victim that they do not need a visa or that the scammers will provide one. If the victim does this, the scammers have the power to extort money from the victim.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Sometimes victims are ransomed, kidnapped, or murdered. According to a 1995 U.S. State Department report, over fifteen persons were murdered between 1992 and 1995 in Nigeria after following through on advance-fee frauds. In 1999 Norwegian millionaire Kjetil Moe was lured to South Africa by scammers and was murdered. George Makronalli was lured to South Africa and was killed in 2004.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: There are many variations on the most common stories, and also many variations on the way the scam works. Some of the more commonly seen variants involve employment scams, lottery scams, online sales and rentals, and romance scams. Many scams involve online sales, such as those advertised on websites such as Craigslist and eBay, or property rental. This article cannot list every known and future type of advanced fee fraud or 419 scheme; only some major types are described. Additional examples may be available in the "external links" section at the end of this article.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: This scam targets people who have posted their résumés on e.g. job sites. The scammer sends a letter with a falsified company logo. The job offer usually indicates exceptional salary and benefits, and requests that the victim needs a "work permit" for working in the country, and includes the address of a (fake) "government official" to contact. The "government official" then proceeds to fleece the victim by extracting fees from the unsuspecting user for the work permit and other fees. A variant of the job scam recruits freelancers seeking work, such as editing or translation, then requires some advance payment before assignments are offered.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Many legitimate (or at least fully registered) companies work on a similar basis, using this method as their primary source of earnings. Some modelling and escort agencies tell applicants that they have a number of clients lined up, but that they require some sort of prior "registration fee", usually paid in by an untraceable method, e.g. by Western Union transfer; once the fee is paid, the applicant is informed the client has cancelled, and not contacted again.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: The scammer contacts the victim to interest them in a "work-from-home" opportunity, or asks them to cash a cheque or money order that for some reason cannot be redeemed locally. In one cover story, the perpetrator of the scam wishes the victim to work as a "mystery shopper", evaluating the service provided by MoneyGram or Western Union locations within major retailers such as Wal-Mart. The scammer sends the victim a forged or stolen cheque or money order as described above, the victim deposits it—banks will often credit an account with the value of a cheque not obviously false— and sends the money to the scammer via wire transfer. Later the cheque is not honoured ("bounces") and the bank debits the victim's account. Schemes based solely on cheque cashing usually offer only a small part of the cheque's total amount, with the assurance that many more cheques will follow; if the victim buys into the scam and cashes all the cheques, the scammer can steal a lot in a very short time.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: More sophisticated scams advertise jobs with real companies and offer lucrative salaries and conditions with the fraudsters pretending to be recruitment agents. A bogus telephone or online interview may take place and after some time the applicant is informed that the job is theirs. To secure the job they are instructed to send money for their work visa or travel costs to the agent, or to a bogus travel agent who works on the scammer's behalf. No matter what the variation, they always involve the job seeker sending them or their agent money, credit card or bank account details. A newer form of employment scam has arisen in which users are sent a bogus job offer, but are not asked to give financial information. Instead, their personal information is harvested during the application process and then sold to third parties for a profit, or used for identity theft.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Another form of employment scam involves making people receive a fake "interview" where they are told the benefits of the company. The attendees are then made to assist to a conference where a scammer will use elaborate manipulation techniques to convince the attendees to purchase products, in a similar manner to the catalog merchant business model, as a hiring requisite. Quite often, the company lacks any form of the physical catalog to help them sell products (e.g. jewelry). When "given" the job, the individual is then asked to promote the scam job offer on their own. They are also made to work the company unpaid as a form of "training". Similar scams involve making alleged job candidates pay money upfront in person for training materials or services, with the claim that upon successful completion, they will be offered a guaranteed job, which never materializes.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: The lottery scam involves fake notices of lottery wins, although the intended victim has not entered the lottery. The "winner" is usually asked to send sensitive information such as name, residential address, occupation/position, lottery number etc. to a free email account which is at times untraceable or without any link. In addition to harvesting this information, the scammer then notifies the victim that releasing the funds requires some small fee (insurance, registration, or shipping). Once the victim sends the fee, the scammer invents another fee.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: The fake cheque technique described above is also used. Fake or stolen cheque, representing a part payment of the winnings, being sent; then a fee, smaller than the amount received, is requested. The bank receiving the bad cheque eventually reclaims the funds from the victim.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: In 2004, a variant of the lottery scam appeared in the United States: a scammer phones a victim purporting to be speaking on behalf of the government about a grant they qualify for, subject to an advance fee of typically US$250.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Typical lottery scams address the person as some variation of "Lucky Winner". This is a red flag as if someone entered an actual lottery and won, the organization would know their name, and not simply call them "Lucky Winner".


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Many scams involve the purchase of goods and services via classified advertisements, especially on sites like Craigslist, eBay, or Gumtree. These typically involve the scammer contacting the seller of a particular good or service via telephone or email expressing interest in the item. They will typically then send a fake cheque written for an amount greater than the asking price, asking the seller to send the difference to an alternate address, usually by money order or Western Union. A seller eager to sell a particular product may not wait for the cheque to clear, and when the bad cheque bounces, the funds wired have already been lost.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Some scammers advertise phony academic conferences in exotic or international locations, complete with fake websites, scheduled agendas and advertising experts in a particular field that will be presenting there. They offer to pay the airfare of the participants, but not the hotel accommodations. They will extract money from the victims when they attempt to reserve their accommodations in a non-existent hotel.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Sometimes, an inexpensive rental property is advertised by a fake landlord, who is typically out of state (or the country) and asking for the rent and/or deposit to be wired to them. Or the con artist finds a property, pretends to be the owner, lists it online, and communicates with the would-be renter to make a cash deposit. The scammer may also be the renter as well, in which case they pretend to be a foreign student and contact a landlord seeking accommodation. They usually state they are not yet in the country and wish to secure accommodations prior to arriving. Once the terms are negotiated, a forged cheque is forwarded for a greater amount than negotiated, and the fraudster asks the landlord to wire some of the money back.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: This is a variation of the online sales scam where high-value, scarce pets are advertised as bait on online advertising websites using little real seller verification like Craigslist, Gumtree, and JunkMail. The pet may either be advertised as being for-sale or up for adoption. Typically the pet is advertised on online advertising pages complete with photographs taken from various sources such as real advertisements, blogs or wherever else an image can be stolen. Upon the potential victim contacting the scammer, the scammer responds by asking for details pertaining to the potential victim's circumstances and location under the pretense of ensuring that the pet would have a suitable home.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: By determining the location of the victim, the scammer ensures he is far enough from the victim so as to not allow the buyer to physically view the pet. Should the scammer be questioned, as the advertisement claimed a location initially, the scammer will claim work circumstances having forced him to relocate. This forces a situation whereby all communication is either via email, telephone (normally untraceable numbers) and SMS.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Upon the victim deciding to adopt or purchase the pet, a courier has to be used which is in reality part of the scam. If this is for an adopted pet, typically the victim is expected to pay some fee such as insurance, food or shipping. Payment is via MoneyGram, Western Union or money mules' bank accounts where other victims have been duped into work from home scams.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Numerous problems are encountered in the courier phase of the scam. The crate is too small and the victim has the option of either purchasing a crate with air conditioning or renting one while also paying a deposit, typically called a caution or cautionary fee. The victim may also have to pay for insurance if such fees have not been paid yet. If the victim pays these fees, the pet may become sick and a veterinarian's assistance is sought for which the victim has to repay the courier.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Additionally, the victim may be asked to pay for a health certificate needed to transport the pet, and for kennel fees during the recuperation period. The further the scam progresses, the more similar are the fictitious fees to those of typical 419 scams. It is not uncommon to see customs or like fees being claimed if such charges fit into the scam plot.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Numerous scam websites may be used for this scam. This scam has been linked to the classical 419 scams in that the fictitious couriers used, as are also used in other types of 419 scams such as lotto scams.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: One of the variants is the "Romance Scam", a money-for-romance angle. The con artist approaches the victim on an online dating service, an instant messenger, or a social networking site. The scammer claims an interest in the victim, and posts pictures of an attractive person. The scammer uses this communication to gain confidence, then asks for money. A very common example of romance scams is depicted in the fraudulent activities of these boys, popularly known as Yahoo boys in Nigeria.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: The con artist may claim to be interested in meeting the victim but needs cash to book a plane, buy a bus ticket, rent a hotel room, pay for personal-travel costs such as gasoline or a vehicle rental, or to cover other expenses. In other cases, they claim they're trapped in a foreign country and need assistance to return, to escape imprisonment by corrupt local officials, to pay for medical expenses due to an illness contracted abroad, and so on. The scammer may also use the confidence gained by the romance angle to introduce some variant of the original Nigerian Letter scheme, such as saying they need to get money or valuables out of the country and offer to share the wealth, making the request for help in leaving the country even more attractive to the victim.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Scams often involve meeting someone on an online match-making service. The scammer initiates contact with their target who is out of the area and requests money for transportation fare. Scammers will typically ask for money to be sent via a money order or wire transfer due to the need to travel, or for medical or business costs.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: When a victim travels to a meeting, it can have deadly consequence as in the case of Jette Jacobs, 67, from Australia. Jette Jacobs traveled to South Africa to supposedly marry her scammer, Jesse Orowo Omokoh, 28, after having sent more than $90000. to him over a three-year period. Her body was discovered on February 9, 2013, under mysterious circumstances, two days after meeting up with Omokoh. Omokoh has fled back to Nigeria. After questioning in Nigeria, Omokoh was arrested. He was found to have had 32 fake online identities. He was never charged with murder, due to the inability to prove he had a hand in the death of Jette Jacobs, only fraud charges.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: This variant of advance-fee fraud is widespread in India and Pakistan. The fraudster uses Internet classified websites and print media to lure the public for the installation of a mobile phone tower on their property, with the promise of huge rental returns. The fraudster also creates fake websites to appear legitimate. The victims part with their money in pieces to the fraudster on account of the Government Service Tax, government clearance charges, bank charges, transportation charges, survey fee etc. The Indian government is issuing public notices in media to spread awareness among the public and warn them against mobile tower fraudsters.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Other scams involve unclaimed property, also called "bona vacantia" in the United Kingdom. In England and Wales (other than the Duchy of Lancaster and the Duchy of Cornwall), this property is administered by the Bona Vacantia Division of the Treasury Solicitor's Department. Fraudulent emails and letters claiming to be from this department have been reported, informing the recipient they are the beneficiary of a legacy but requiring the payment of a fee before sending more information or releasing the money. In the United States, messages are falsely claimed to be from the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA), a real organization, but one that does not and cannot itself make payments.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: In one variant of 419 fraud, an alleged hitman writes to someone explaining he has been targeted to kill them. He tells them he knows the allegations against them are false, and asks for money so the target can receive evidence of the person who ordered the hit.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Another variant of advanced fee fraud is known as a pigeon drop. This is a confidence trick in which the mark, or "pigeon", is persuaded to give up a sum of money in order to secure the rights to a larger sum of money, or more valuable object. In reality, the scammers make off with the money and the mark is left with nothing. In the process, the stranger (actually a confidence trickster) puts his money with the mark's money (in an envelope, briefcase, or bag) which the mark is then apparently entrusted with; it is actually switched for a bag full of newspaper or other worthless material. Through various theatrics, the mark is given the opportunity to leave with the money without the stranger realizing. In reality, the mark would be fleeing from his own money, which the con man still has (or has handed off to an accomplice).


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Some scammers will go after the victims of previous scams; known as a reloading scam. For example, they may contact a victim saying they can track and apprehend the scammer and recover the money lost by the victim, for a price. Or they may say a fund has been set up by the Nigerian government to compensate victims of 419 fraud, and all that is required is proof of the loss, personal information, and a processing and handling fee. The recovery scammers obtain lists of victims by buying them from the original scammers.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Estimates of the total losses due to the scam are uncertain and vary widely, since many people may be too embarrassed to admit that they were gullible enough to be scammed to report the crime. A United States government report in 2006 indicated that Americans lost $198.4 million to Internet fraud in 2006, averaging a loss of $5,100 per incident. That same year, a report in the United Kingdom claimed that these scams cost the economy £150 million per year, with the average victim losing £31,000. As of 2019, Nigerian letter scams still annually collect $700,000 ($ in dollars) or $2,133 ($ in dollars) per person.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: In addition to the financial cost, many victims also suffer a severe emotional and psychological cost, such as losing their ability to trust people. One man from Cambridgeshire, UK burnt himself to death with petrol after realizing that the $1.2 million "internet lottery" that he had won was actually a scam. In 2007 a Chinese student at the University of Nottingham killed herself after she discovered that she had fallen for a similar lottery scam.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Other victims lose wealth and friends, become estranged from family members, deceive partners, get divorced, or commit criminal offenses in the process of either fulfilling their "obligations" to the scammers or obtaining more money. In 2008, an Oregon woman lost $400,000 to a Nigerian advance-fee fraud scam, after an email told her she had inherited money from her long-lost grandfather. Her curiosity was piqued because she actually had a grandfather with whom her family had lost touch, and whose initials matched those given in the email. She sent hundreds of thousands of dollars over a period of more than two years, despite her family, bank staff and law enforcement officials all urging her to stop. The elderly are particularly susceptible to online scams such as this, as they typically come from a generation that was more trusting, and are often too proud to report the fraud. They also may be concerned that relatives might see it as a sign of declining mental capacity, and they are afraid to lose their independence.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Victims can be enticed to borrow or embezzle money to pay the advance fees, believing that they will shortly be paid a much larger sum and be able to refund what they misappropriated. Crimes committed by victims include credit-card fraud, check kiting, and embezzlement. San Diego-based businessman James Adler lost over $5 million in a Nigeria-based advance-fee scam. While a court affirmed that various Nigerian government officials (including a governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria) were directly or indirectly involved, and that Nigerian government officials could be sued in U.S. courts under the "commercial activity" exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, Adler was unable to get his money back due to the doctrine of unclean hands because he had knowingly entered into a contract that was illegal.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Some 419 scams involve even more serious crimes, such as kidnapping or murder. One such case, in 2008, involves Osamai Hitomi, a Japanese businessman who was lured to Johannesburg, South Africa and kidnapped on September 26, 2008. The kidnappers took him to Alberton, south of Johannesburg, and demanded a $5 million ransom from his family. Seven people were ultimately arrested. In July 2001, Joseph Raca, a former mayor of Northampton, UK, was kidnapped by scammers in Johannesburg, South Africa, who demanded a ransom of £20,000. The captors released Raca after they became nervous. One 419 scam that ended in murder occurred in February 2003, when Jiří Pasovský, a 72-year-old scam victim from the Czech Republic, shot and killed 50-year-old Michael Lekara Wayid, an official at the Nigerian embassy in Prague, and injured another person, after the Nigerian Consul General explained he could not return the $600,000 that Pasovský had lost to a Nigerian scammer.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: The international nature of the crime, combined with the fact that many victims do not want to admit that they bought into an illegal activity, has made tracking down and apprehending these criminals difficult. Furthermore, the government of Nigeria has been slow to take action, leading some investigators to believe that some Nigerian government officials are involved in some of these scams. The Nigeria government's establishment of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in 2004 helped with the issue to some degree, although issues with corruption remain. A notable case which the EFCC pursued was that of Emmanuel Nwude, who was convicted for defrauding $242 million out of the director of a Brazilian bank, Banco Noroeste, which ultimately led to the bank's collapse. Also the SARS (Special Anti-Robbery Squad), a division of the Nigerian Police Force lately has been apprehending suspected fraud perpetrators.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Despite this, there have been some recent successes in apprehending and prosecuting these criminals. In 2004, fifty-two suspects were arrested in Amsterdam after an extensive raid, after which almost no 419 emails were reported being sent by local internet service providers. In November 2004, Australian authorities apprehended Nick Marinellis of Sydney, the self-proclaimed head of Australian 419ers who later boasted that he had "220 African brothers worldwide" and that he was "the Australian headquarters for those scams". In 2008 US authorities in Olympia, Washington, sentenced Edna Fiedler to two years in prison with 5 years of supervised probation for her involvement in a $1 million Nigerian cheque scam. She had an accomplice in Lagos, Nigeria, who shipped her up to $1.1 million worth of counterfeit cheques and money orders with instructions on where to ship them.


title: Advance-fee scam

text: Research suggests that some Nigerian hip-hop musicians have strong connections with some Yahoo Boys (cybercriminals). Due to the increased use of the 419 scams on the Internet, it has been used as a plot device in many films, television shows and books. A song, "I Go Chop Your Dollar", performed by Nkem Owoh, also became internationally known as an anthem for 419 scammers using the phrases "419 is just a game, I am the winner, you are the loser". Other appearances in popular media include:


title: Belle (2013 film)

text: Belle is a 2013 British period drama film directed by Amma Asante, written by Misan Sagay and produced by Damian Jones. It stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Tom Wilkinson, Miranda Richardson, Penelope Wilton, Sam Reid, Matthew Goode, Emily Watson, Sarah Gadon, Tom Felton, and James Norton.


title: Belle (2013 film)

text: The film is inspired by the 1779 painting of Dido Elizabeth Belle beside her cousin Lady Elizabeth Murray at Kenwood House, which was commissioned by their great-uncle, William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, then Lord Chief Justice of England. Very little is known about the life of Dido Belle, who was born in the West Indies and was the illegitimate mixed-race daughter of Mansfield's nephew, Sir John Lindsay. She is found living in poverty by her father and entrusted to the care of Mansfield and his wife. The fictional film centres on Dido's relationship with an aspiring lawyer; it is set at a time of legal significance, as a court case is heard on what became known as the "Zong" massacre, when slaves were thrown overboard from a slave ship and the owner filed with his insurance company for the losses. Lord Mansfield ruled on this case in England's Court of King's Bench in 1786, in a decision seen to contribute to the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act of 1807.


title: Belle (2013 film)

text: Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsay was born in 1761, the natural daughter of Captain Sir John Lindsay, a British Royal Navy officer, with Maria Belle, an enslaved African woman in the West Indies. After Dido's mother's death in 1769, Captain Lindsay takes Dido from the West Indies slums and entrusts her to his uncle William Murray, First Earl of Mansfield, the Lord Chief Justice, and his wife Elizabeth, who live at Kenwood House, an estate in Hampstead (then outside London).


title: Belle (2013 film)

text: Lord and Lady Mansfield raise Dido as a free gentlewoman with their other great-niece Lady Elizabeth Murray, whose widowed father had remarried to a woman who pressured him to disown Elizabeth. When the cousins reach adulthood, the Mansfields commission an oil portrait of their two great-nieces, but Dido fears she will be portrayed as a subordinate, similar to other portraits she has seen depicting aristocrats with black servants.


title: Belle (2013 film)

text: Dido's father dies, leaving her a vast sum of £2,000 a year, making her an heiress. Lady Elizabeth, by contrast, will have no income from her father, as his son from his new wife has been named sole heir. Arrangements are made for Elizabeth to have her coming-out to society, but Lord and Lady Mansfield believe no gentleman will agree to marry Dido because of her mixed race. Fearing lower-ranking men will only marry her for her wealth, and that a marriage to a lower-status man will reduce her rank and shame the family, Lord Mansfield decides she will travel to London with her cousin but will not be "out" to society, and he asks her to take her spinster great-aunt Mary's place as the keeper of the house, with the implication that she will not marry.


title: Belle (2013 film)

text: Lord Mansfield agrees to take the vicar's son, John Davinier, into a law pupillage. In 1783, Mansfield hears the case of "Gregson v. Gilbert", regarding the payment of an insurance claim, for slaves killed when thrown overboard by the captain of a slave-ship — an event now known as the "Zong" massacre. Dido helps her uncle with his correspondence. After John tells her about the "Zong" case, she begins sneaking correspondence to him which he believes will advance the cause of the abolitionists. Lord Mansfield and John have a disagreement on the main issue of the case. John is told leave and not to see Dido again, and his pupillage is at an end.


title: Belle (2013 film)

text: Dido's aunts, Lady Mansfield and Lady Mary Murray, seek to steer Dido into an engagement with Oliver Ashford, son of a scheming grand dame and younger brother to bigoted James Ashford. At first, James is interested in Elizabeth but stops courting her once he discovers she will have no inheritance. Oliver, who is without fortune, proposes to Dido and she accepts, although she continues to see John in secret. James takes Dido aside, tells her she will disgrace his family's name, then insults and gropes her.


title: Belle (2013 film)

text: Dido later tells Elizabeth of James' true character, offering to give her part of her inheritance as a dowry so she can find a different match. Lord Mansfield finds out about Dido's visits to John and confronts them, and John professes his love for her. Sometime later, she meets Oliver and breaks off their engagement.


title: Belle (2013 film)

text: Dido is relieved when the painting is unveiled, she is shown as Elizabeth's equal. She tells Lord Mansfield that the portrait commission proves that he can defy convention.


title: Belle (2013 film)

text: Dido sneaks into the balcony of the Inn of Court, to hear Lord Mansfield narrowly rule that the Gregson slave-trading syndicate is not due insurance payments for the slaves the crew threw overboard during the voyage. The ship's officers claimed they ordered this action because they were out of potable water, but Lord Mansfield had discovered that the "Zong" passed by many ports without stopping for more water, before murdering the slaves. The slaves' quarters were overcrowded, making them sick and not likely to fetch a high price at auction, so the officers had decided they would be worth more in insurance payments after their "loss", and so threw them overboard. When Lord Mansfield sees John and Dido outside the Court after his ruling, he says that Dido can only marry a gentleman. Therefore, he agrees to resume John's pupillage, so that he can become a lawyer. Dido and John embrace, both in full acknowledgement of their romantic feelings.


title: Belle (2013 film)

text: In the credits we see Dido and John married, having two sons. Elizabeth also married and had three children, and their painting hung at Kenwood House until 1922, when it was moved to Scone Palace near Perth, the birthplace of Lord Mansfield.


title: Belle (2013 film)

text: The 1779 painting, once thought to be by Johann Zoffany, is now attributed to David Martin. The painting hung in Kenwood House until 1922 and now hangs at Scone Palace in Perthshire, Scotland. It was one of the first European portraits to portray a black subject on an equal eye-line with a white aristocrat, though distinctions are implied by the poses, as Elizabeth's "formality and bookishness are contrasted with the wild and exotically turbanned 'natural' figure of Belle."


title: Belle (2013 film)

text: The painting is replicated in the film with the faces of the actresses portraying the characters replacing those in the original. Dido's finger-to-cheek gesture is absent in the fictionalised version, as is her feathered turban. The original picture is shown on screen at the end of the film.


title: Belle (2013 film)

text: Filming began on 24 September 2012. The film was shot on location in the Isle of Man, Oxford and London. It is the first major British motion picture to be shot in true-4K, using Sony's F65 CineAlta digital production camera. The film was produced by DJ Films, Isle of Man Film, and Pinewood Pictures with support from the BFI.


title: Belle (2013 film)

text: Production designer Simon Bowles created the 18th-century Bristol Docks on the Isle of Man and created Kenwood House, based on a number of stately homes in the London area.


title: Belle (2013 film)

text: The film is a work of historical fiction, inspired by a painting and the evidence that Dido was brought up at Kenwood House. The relative lack of details about Dido Elizabeth Belle allowed screenwriter Misan Sagay considerable artistic licence in framing the young woman's story, within the broader historical context of the slave economy and the abolition movement.


title: Belle (2013 film)

text: The only other direct historical reference made about Belle, other than the painting and American loyalist Thomas Hutchinson's personal diary, appear in "Elements of Moral Science", a 1790 work by the Scottish professor of moral philosophy James Beattie, who met Belle and in the book states she recited poetry with "a degree of elegance" equal to any English child of her age, arguing against the then prevailing theory that "negroes are naturally and utterly incapable of distinct articulation".


title: Belle (2013 film)

text: William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, who was Lord Chief Justice of England from 1756 to 1788, presided over two important cases, "Somerset v Stewart" in 1772 and the "Zong" insurance claims case in 1783, which helped lay the groundwork for Britain's Slave Trade Act 1807. In the film his concluding line at the end of the Zong case - "the state of slavery (is) so odious that nothing can be suffered to support it" - was historically actually quoted by him in the Somerset v Stewart case eleven years before. As in the film, he was the great-uncle of Dido Elizabeth Belle and Lady Elizabeth Murray.


title: Belle (2013 film)

text: At the suggestion of the producers, HarperCollins published a companion book, "Belle - The Slave Daughter and the Lord Chief Justice" (2014), by biographer Paula Byrne, recounting the lives of the film's principal characters.


title: Belle (2013 film)

text: Sagay chose to set the major events; Belle's and Elizabeth's love affairs and the Zong case, in the same year the painting was made - when Belle was about 18. In reality, Belle married at 32, long after Lady Elizabeth was married and no longer in touch with Belle.


title: Belle (2013 film)

text: James Walvin OBE, professor emeritus of the University of York, said of "Belle": "Much of the historical evidence is there – though festooned in the film with imaginary relishes and fictional tricks. Partly accurate, the whole thing reminded me of the classic Morecambe and Wise sketch with Andre Previn (Eric bashing away on the piano): all the right notes – but not necessarily in the right order." Reviewing the film for "History Extra", the official website of "BBC History Magazine", Walvin noted that while the second half of the film centres on Dido Elizabeth Belle's involvement in the "Zong" case, in reality she was "nowhere to be found in the "Zong" affair". In the film "Tom Wilkinson’s Mansfield finds his cold legal commercial heart softened, and edged towards abolition by the eyelash-fluttering efforts of his stunning great niece" and his "adjudication becomes, not a point of law, but the first bold assertion towards the end of slavery". Walvin points out that "he merely stated that there should be another hearing of the "Zong" case – this time with evidence not known at the earlier hearing". Walvin awarded the film one star for enjoyment and two for historical accuracy.


title: Belle (2013 film)

text: Some press coverage ahead of filming cited Asante as the sole writer of "Belle" as well as director. Press releases that followed Fox Searchlight's acquisition of the film gave the final credit determined by the Writers Guild of America as "Written by Misan Sagay". Sagay claimed she began writing her script in 2004, after seeing the painting of Dido Belle at Scone Palace. The project was initially developed by HBO. It then received funding from the British Film Institute in 2009, but Sagay left the project the following year due to serious ill-health. When Asante was hired, Sagay believed that Asante would edit her script. Instead she learned that a script without her name on was being used.


title: Belle (2013 film)

text: The subsequent arbitration process undertaken by the Writers Guild of America (WGA) determined that Sagay provided the bulk of content used in the script, so Sagay was awarded sole writing credit. Cast members Penelope Wilton and Tom Wilkinson expressed "incredulity" at the accreditation decision. Wilkinson said he "only saw and worked from a script written by Amma". Information obtained by "Entertainment Weekly" showed Asante wrote 18 script drafts, before she directed the film. Producers planned to submit Asante and Sagay as co-writers, but Sagay wanted a solo credit. Producer Damian Jones then asked the WGA to give Sagay a "story by" credit, with Asante getting a "screenplay by" credit, but this was rejected. Asante appealed the WGA's decision, but lost.


title: Belle (2013 film)

text: In July 2013, it was announced that Fox Searchlight Pictures had acquired distribution rights for the film in the UK and USA. "Belle" premiered at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival on 8 September 2013. The film was released on 2 May 2014 in the United States, 9 May in Canada and 13 June 2014 in the United Kingdom.


title: Belle (2013 film)

text: The film received positive reviews from critics. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a "Certified Fresh" score of 84% based on reviews from 150 critics, with an average rating of 6.99/10. The site's consensus states: "It boasts all the surface beauty that fans of period pictures have come to expect, but "Belle" also benefits from its stirring performances and subtle social consciousness." Critic Mark Kermode named it his fourth-favourite film of 2014.


title: Pleural effusion

text: A pleural effusion is accumulation of excessive fluid in the pleural space, the potential space that surrounds each lung.


title: Pleural effusion

text: Under normal conditions, pleural fluid is secreted by the parietal pleural capillaries at a rate of 0.6 millilitre per kilogram weight per hour, and is cleared by lymphatic absorption leaving behind only 5–15 millilitres of fluid, which helps to maintain a functional vacuum between the parietal and visceral pleurae. Excess fluid within the pleural space can impair inspiration by upsetting the functional vacuum and hydrostatically increasing the resistance against lung expansion, resulting in a fully or partially collapsed lung.


title: Pleural effusion

text: Various kinds of fluid can accumulate in the pleural space, such as serous fluid (hydrothorax), blood (hemothorax), pus (pyothorax, more commonly known as pleural empyema), chyle (chylothorax), or very rarely urine (urinothorax). When unspecified, the term "pleural effusion" normally refers to hydrothorax. A pleural effusion can also be compounded by a pneumothorax (accumulation of air in the pleural space), leading to a hydropneumothorax.


title: Pleural effusion

text: The most common causes of transudative pleural effusion in the United States are heart failure and cirrhosis. Nephrotic syndrome, leading to the loss of large amounts of albumin in urine and resultant low albumin levels in the blood and reduced colloid osmotic pressure, is another less common cause of pleural effusion. Pulmonary emboli were once thought to cause transudative effusions, but have been recently shown to be exudative.


title: Pleural effusion

text: The mechanism for the exudative pleural effusion in pulmonary thromboembolism is probably related to increased permeability of the capillaries in the lung, which results from the release of cytokines or inflammatory mediators (e.g. vascular endothelial growth factor) from the platelet-rich blood clots. The excessive interstitial lung fluid traverses the visceral pleura and accumulates in the pleural space.


title: Pleural effusion

text: When a pleural effusion has been determined to be exudative, additional evaluation is needed to determine its cause, and amylase, glucose, pH and cell counts should be measured.


title: Pleural effusion

text: The most common causes of exudative pleural effusions are bacterial pneumonia, cancer (with lung cancer, breast cancer, and lymphoma causing approximately 75% of all malignant pleural effusions), viral infection, and pulmonary embolism.


title: Pleural effusion

text: Another common cause is after heart surgery when incompletely drained blood can lead to an inflammatory response that causes exudative pleural fluid.


title: Pleural effusion

text: Other causes of pleural effusion include tuberculosis (though stains of pleural fluid are only rarely positive for acid-fast bacilli, this is the most common cause of pleural effusions in some developing countries), autoimmune disease such as systemic lupus erythematosus, bleeding (often due to chest trauma), chylothorax (most commonly caused by trauma), and accidental infusion of fluids. Less common causes include esophageal rupture or pancreatic disease, intra-abdominal abscesses, rheumatoid arthritis, asbestos pleural effusion, mesothelioma, Meigs's syndrome (ascites and pleural effusion due to a benign ovarian tumor), and ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome.


title: Pleural effusion

text: Pleural effusions may also occur through medical or surgical interventions, including the use of medications (pleural fluid is usually eosinophilic), coronary artery bypass surgery, abdominal surgery, endoscopic variceal sclerotherapy, radiation therapy, liver or lung transplantation, insertion of ventricular shunt as a treatment method of hydrocephalus, and intra- or extravascular insertion of central lines.


title: Pleural effusion

text: Pleural fluid is secreted by the parietal layer of the pleura and reabsorbed by the lymphatics in the most dependent parts of the parietal pleura, primarily the diaphragmatic and mediastinal regions. Exudative pleural effusions occur when the pleura is damaged, e.g., by trauma, infection, or malignancy, and transudative pleural effusions develop when there is either excessive production of pleural fluid or the resorption capacity is reduced. Light's criteria can be used to differentiate between exudative and transudative pleural effusions.


title: Pleural effusion

text: A pleural effusion is usually diagnosed on the basis of medical history and physical exam, and confirmed by a chest X-ray. Once accumulated fluid is more than 300 mL, there are usually detectable clinical signs, such as decreased movement of the chest on the affected side, dullness to percussion over the fluid, diminished breath sounds on the affected side, decreased vocal resonance and fremitus (though this is an inconsistent and unreliable sign), and pleural friction rub. Above the effusion, where the lung is compressed, there may be bronchial breathing sounds and egophony. A large effusion there may cause tracheal deviation away from the effusion. A systematic review (2009) published as part of the Rational Clinical Examination Series in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that dullness to conventional percussion was most accurate for diagnosing pleural effusion (summary positive likelihood ratio, 8.7; 95% confidence interval, 2.2–33.8), while the absence of reduced tactile vocal fremitus made pleural effusion less likely (negative likelihood ratio, 0.21; 95% confidence interval, 0.12–0.37).


title: Pleural effusion

text: A pleural effusion appears as an area of whiteness on a standard posteroanterior chest X-ray. Normally, the space between the visceral pleura and the parietal pleura cannot be seen. A pleural effusion infiltrates the space between these layers. Because the pleural effusion has a density similar to water, it can be seen on radiographs. Since the effusion has greater density than the rest of the lung, it gravitates towards the lower portions of the pleural cavity. The pleural effusion behaves according to basic fluid dynamics, conforming to the shape of pleural space, which is determined by the lung and chest wall. If the pleural space contains both air and fluid, then an air-fluid level that is horizontal will be present, instead of conforming to the lung space. Chest radiographs in the lateral decubitus position (with the patient lying on the side of the pleural effusion) are more sensitive and can detect as little as 50 mL of fluid. Between 250 and 600mL of fluid must be present before upright chest X-rays can detect a pleural effusion (e.g., blunted costophrenic angles).


title: Pleural effusion

text: Chest computed tomography is more accurate for diagnosis and may be obtained to better characterize the presence, size, and characteristics of a pleural effusion. Lung ultrasound, nearly as accurate as CT and more accurate than chest X-ray, is increasingly being used at the point of care to diagnose pleural effusions, with the advantage that it is a safe, dynamic, and repeatable imaging modality. To increase diagnostic accuracy of detection of pleural effusion sonographically, markers such as boomerang and VIP signs can be utilized.


title: Pleural effusion

text: Once a pleural effusion is diagnosed, its cause must be determined. Pleural fluid is drawn out of the pleural space in a process called thoracentesis, and it should be done in almost all patients who have pleural fluid that is at least 10 mm in thickness on CT, ultrasonography, or lateral decubitus X-ray and that is new or of uncertain etiology. In general, the only patients who do not require thoracentesis are those who have heart failure with symmetric pleural effusions and no chest pain or fever; in these patients, diuresis can be tried, and thoracentesis is avoided unless effusions persist for more than 3 days. In a thoracentesis, a needle is inserted through the back of the chest wall in the sixth, seventh, or eighth intercostal space on the midaxillary line, into the pleural space. The use of ultrasound to guide the procedure is now standard of care as it increases accuracy and decreases complications. After removal, the fluid may then be evaluated for:


title: Pleural effusion

text: Definitions of the terms "transudate" and "exudate" are the source of much confusion. Briefly, transudate is produced through pressure filtration without capillary injury while exudate is "inflammatory fluid" leaking between cells.


title: Pleural effusion

text: Transudative pleural effusions are defined as effusions that are caused by "systemic" factors that alter the pleural equilibrium, or Starling forces. The components of the Starling forces – hydrostatic pressure, permeability, and oncotic pressure (effective pressure due to the composition of the pleural fluid and blood) – are altered in many diseases, e.g., left ventricular failure, kidney failure, liver failure, and cirrhosis. Exudative pleural effusions, by contrast, are caused by alterations in "local" factors that influence the formation and absorption of pleural fluid (e.g., bacterial pneumonia, cancer, pulmonary embolism, and viral infection).


title: Pleural effusion

text: An accurate diagnosis of the cause of the effusion, transudate versus exudate, relies on a comparison of the chemistries in the pleural fluid to those in the blood, using Light's criteria. According to Light's criteria (Light, et al. 1972), a pleural effusion is likely exudative if at least one of the following exists:


title: Pleural effusion

text: The sensitivity and specificity of Light's criteria for detection of exudates have been measured in many studies and are usually reported to be around 98% and 80%, respectively. This means that although Light's criteria are relatively accurate, twenty percent of patients that are identified by Light's criteria as having exudative pleural effusions actually have transudative pleural effusions. Therefore, if a patient identified by Light's criteria as having an exudative pleural effusion appears clinically to have a condition that usually produces transudative effusions, additional testing is needed. In such cases, albumin levels in blood and pleural fluid are measured. If the difference between the albumin level in the blood and the pleural fluid is greater than 1.2 g/dL (12 g/L), this suggests that the patient has a transudative pleural effusion. However, pleural fluid testing is not perfect, and the final decision about whether a fluid is a transudate or an exudate is based not on chemical analysis of the fluid, but an accurate diagnosis of the disease that produces the fluid.


title: Pleural effusion

text: The traditional definitions of transudate as a pleural effusion due to systemic factors and an exudate as a pleural effusion due to local factors have been used since 1940 or earlier (Light et al., 1972). Previous to Light's landmark study, which was based on work by Chandrasekhar, investigators unsuccessfully attempted to use other criteria, such as specific gravity, pH, and protein content of the fluid, to differentiate between transudates and exudates. Light's criteria are highly statistically sensitive for exudates (although not very statistically specific). More recent studies have examined other characteristics of pleural fluid that may help to determine whether the process producing the effusion is local (exudate) or systemic (transudate). The table above illustrates some of the results of these more recent studies. However, it should be borne in mind that Light's criteria are still the most widely used criteria.


title: Pleural effusion

text: The Rational Clinical Examination Series review found that bilateral effusions, symmetric and asymmetric, are the most common distribution in heart failure (60% of effusions in heart failure will be bilateral). When there is asymmetry in heart failure-associated pleural effusions (either unilateral or one side larger than the other), the right side is usually more involved than the left.


title: Pleural effusion

text: The instruments pictured are accurately shaped, however, most hospitals now use safer disposable trocars. Because these are single use, they are always sharp and have a much smaller risk of cross patient contamination.


title: Pleural effusion

text: Therapeutic aspiration may be sufficient; larger effusions may require insertion of an intercostal drain (either pigtail or surgical). When managing these chest tubes, it is important to make sure the chest tubes do not become occluded or clogged. A clogged chest tube in the setting of continued production of fluid will result in residual fluid left behind when the chest tube is removed. This fluid can lead to complications such as hypoxia due to lung collapse from the fluid, or fibrothorax if scarring occurs. Repeated effusions may require chemical (talc, bleomycin, tetracycline/doxycycline), or surgical pleurodesis, in which the two pleural surfaces are scarred to each other so that no fluid can accumulate between them. This is a surgical procedure that involves inserting a chest tube, then either mechanically abrading the pleura or inserting the chemicals to induce a scar. This requires the chest tube to stay in until the fluid drainage stops. This can take days to weeks and can require prolonged hospitalizations. If the chest tube becomes clogged, fluid will be left behind and the pleurodesis will fail.


title: Pleural effusion

text: Pleurodesis fails in as many as 30% of cases. An alternative is to place a PleurX Pleural Catheter or Aspira Drainage Catheter. This is a 15Fr chest tube with a one-way valve. Each day the patient or caregivers connect it to a simple vacuum tube and remove from 600 to 1000 mL of fluid, and can be repeated daily. When not in use, the tube is capped. This allows patients to be outside the hospital. For patients with malignant pleural effusions, it allows them to continue chemotherapy if indicated. Generally, the tube is in for about 30 days, and then it is removed when space undergoes spontaneous pleurodesis.


title: Pleural effusion

text: Tubercular pleural effusion is one of the common extrapulmonary forms of tuberculosis. Treatment consists of antituberculosis treatment (ATT). The currently recommended ATT regime is two months of isoniazid, rifampicin, ethambutol and pyrazinamide followed by four months of isoniazid, rifampicin and ethambutol.


title: Kenya Moore

text: Kenya Summer Moore (born January 24, 1971) is an American actress, model, producer, author, television personality, and entrepreneur. She is best known for winning the Miss USA pageant in 1993 and being a main cast member on Bravo's reality series, "The Real Housewives of Atlanta", starring in its fifth season since 2012.


title: Kenya Moore

text: Moore rose to prominence in 1993 after winning the Miss USA contest, and placing in the top six of that year's Miss Universe pageant. She was the second black woman to be crowned Miss USA, after Carole Gist, and she holds the distinction of being the first dark-skinned woman to win the contest. She subsequently appeared in films and television shows including "Waiting To Exhale" (1995), "Deliver Us from Eva" (2003), "The Steve Harvey Show" (1998) and "Girlfriends" (2004).


title: Kenya Moore

text: Since 2012, Moore has starred in the Bravo series "The Real Housewives of Atlanta", one of the most consistently highly rated reality programmes. She was also a member of the cast of "The Celebrity Apprentice" in 2015, a contestant on "Dancing with the Stars" and part of the first "The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip" cast, both in 2021. Moore has produced several film projects, had a book published, and starred in her own exercise video. She is also known for her involvement in entrepreneurial ventures and is the founder of a hair care brand, "Kenya Moore Hair".


title: Kenya Moore

text: Moore was born in Detroit, Michigan to teenagers Patricia Moore and Ronald Grant, and was raised by her paternal grandmother Doris Grant(1931–2017) and aunt after her mother abandoned her at three days old. The reality TV show star revealed that her mother never named her. "Since birth, my mother made the decision at age 16 to pretend she never had me. She has never spoken to me," Kenya wrote. "Even if present in the same room with other people and family, she pretends that I simply don't exist. She pretends I'm invisible," Kenya revealed on her Bravo blog. Moore graduated from Cass Technical High School in 1989. While still in high school, Moore experienced domestic violence from a much older boyfriend. In Moore's words, "He tormented me physically, mentally and once even nearly killed me by putting me into the hospital, from attacking me with a finger nail file… stabbing me with a finger nail file."


title: Kenya Moore

text: Moore began modeling at the age of 14 and in the course of her modeling career was the January 1992 cover girl for Chicago-based Johnson Publishing Company's Ebony Man's (EM) magazine. She also became a model for the Ebony Fashion Fair cosmetic line. At 22, Moore won Miss Michigan USA (1993) and then became the second African American woman to win Miss USA. She then represented the United States in the Miss Universe 1993 pageant and placed in the top six.