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Announcement: Scammed by Gonez?

If you're stopping by our site because you've heard the sob story of a war vet who had his savings stolen by us, read a bit more about that story here. It's just a fabrication by an escrow scammer who got tired of us shutting down his "businesses".

Welcome to Artists Against 419

The Internet is great, isn't it? It's a magical place, where you can buy anything you want, meet new people, find information... and lose all your money to scammers.

We've never liked that last part, so we started to fight back. Over time our art has evolved, and we now maintain the largest repository of websites used in 419 and Advance Fee Fraud on the internet.

We offer a complete public interface for our site visitors, as well as database access through webservices which can be used for automated retrieval of fake bank entries. Web browser toolbars use our database feed to warn users that a site they visit is a fake company run by scammers. But most importantly, we continue to build better relations with webhosting companies and rid the Internet of fraudulent web sites.

Related pages

• FAQ and Support
• What is 419?
• Is this a legit site? Use some Online search tools to help identify fraud
• Links to other sites
• Fanmail
• Fake banks and Web sites in the news
• Old Coaster's List of Bank Regulators around the World

Announcement: Anti Phishing Working Group

We believe that open communication between all companies and groups involved in the fight against internet fraud is the only way to combat it.

To that end, the Artists Against 419 are pround to announce their membership of the Anti Phishing Working Group (APWG), and look forward to co-operating with its many members. Our main focus of work will remain fake websites used in Advance Fee fraud, but we aim to share our knowledge where possible.

For more information on the APWG, please click on their logo above.

Announcement: DomainTools.com

DomainTools.com is an excellent resource for learning more about the background of a web site: who hosts it, who registered it, its history, and so on. The majority of its services and tools are free, but with registered accounts you get access to a lot of additional "power" tools. The Artists recommend it for anybody seriously interested in web site research. Take a look for yourself...

Spread the word!

A new bandwidth tool was released for beta testing on 13 February 2006: Muguito is a Java tool that runs equally under Windows, Linux, Mac, or any other OS that supports Java. Current version is 0.1.5a, released on April 26, 2006. It is stable, fast, precise -- and deadly to fake banks.

The Artists revealed an updated version of the Lad Vampire on December 5. Take a look, and read more about it in our forums!

Bandwidth Attack Information

• What is the Flash Mob?
• Flash Mob History
• Why Bandwidth Theft?
• AA419 Tools

Artists Database Used in New Firetrust Sitehound Software

That's right, the Artists are one of the Community Groups whose information is used by Firetrust's recently released toolbar. Of course we are very pleased that years of hard work in putting together our database are being put to some greater use! But most importantly, there's now a way for thousands of internet users to be immediately warned that they're being targeted by scammers. Nothing fights 419 fraud like public awareness!!!

Please see the User's Guide for usage and configuration help. This guide here is a good summary about formatting, tips and tricks, etc.