Van Clarke was uneasy about the prospect of conducting business without the consent or knowledge of the bank, but the amount of money left by Moser van Clarke proved too strong an incentive for him to give up the idea. He strongly suspected that what he and Smythe were doing was probably illegal in some way, but he preferred simply not to think about that. On December 12, Smythe passed off van Clarke to Patrick Rodriguez, who was supposedly from Royal Asset Management. Another Internet search by van Clarke revealed that there was a legitimate company with this name. Rodriguez and Royal Asset Management's role was to "authenticate" van Clarke's claim through documents (driver's license, copy of utility bill, last-known address, deceased's last-known address and the deceased's mother's maiden name) that van Clarke would provide to Rodriguez. Van Clarke sent copies of the required documents by return e-mail.

In addition to Smythe and Rodriguez and the aforementioned companies, the scammers used the fictitious names of four companies and associated bank accounts in Hong Kong; two fictitious companies in Taiwan; and one company in Curacao, Netherland Antilles, as covers for the scam. In addition to Smythe there were eight other individuals used to collect funds supposedly sent to the United Kingdom.

Edwin van Clarke was 62 years old at the time Smythe contacted him. He lived with his wife in a single-family home in Naples, Florida, and had two grown children. The van Clarkes also owned a rental property in Naples. Van Clarke was a field supervisor for North Cabinets and was planning to use his portion of the inheritance to supplement his retirement. He later told me that he wanted to surprise his wife with the unexpected income.

Instead of increasing his retirement nest egg, during the next six months van Clarke would lose hundreds of thousands of dollars — without the knowledge of his wife. To be able to send the "required fees" to process the funds, van Clarke took out home equity loans on both his residence and rental property.

I was unable to determine when van Clarke knew he had been scammed. The fraud itself began in November and the last contact van Clarke had with the perpetrators was the next May, six months later. However, van Clarke waited until November — six months after his last contact with the perpetrators — to report the crime to the local sheriff's office. Even then, it was only his wife's insistence that convinced van Clarke to file a report.

What we do know is that on May 26, van Clarke received an e-mail stating:

This was the last contact van Clarke had with any of those involved in the scheme. From beginning to end, it lasted six months and cost van Clarke more than $206,000.

This crime fell into two broad categories. The first was a fraud within a fraud. It was obvious from the start that van Clarke was not related to the deceased in any way and was not entitled to any inheritance — if there was one to be collected. I was working as an investigator at the sheriff's office when van Clarke first reached out to us in November. He readily admitted to me that he believed he was originally involved in a scheme that would net him a 30 percent share of more than $8 million. It was not until later that he came to the conclusion that he was not a participant in the scheme, but was in fact the victim.

The second category that this crime fell into was an advance-fee scheme, but it was different from any I had investigated in the past. From the very beginning, van Clarke was required to wire large up-front or advance fees in order to collect his portion of the inheritance. The other advance-fee schemes I had investigated began with the perpetrators asking the victim to submit small fees, which gradually increased over time, as the victim became more and more entrenched in the scam. The "fraud within a fraud" is the hallmark of many advance-fee swindles. The con intimates (if not states outright) that the proposed arrangement is illegal and is counting on the fact that the victim is willing to break the law. This will decrease the chances that the victim will tell someone else, even a spouse.

Van Clarke e-mailed Rodriquez copies of his Florida driver's license, electricity bill and his mother's maiden name. Two days later, van Clarke received an e-mail stating "Transfer of Title Mandate: Process Conclusion." The alleged purpose of this e-mail was threefold. The first was to congratulate van Clarke for successfully completing the "evaluation and verification process." The second reason was to inform van Clarke that an account had been set up in the Cayman Islands to receive the $8.37 million. The third and actual reason for the e-mail was to request the first of many advance fees from van Clarke; in short, to set the hook.

The first payment that van Clarke made was $18,850 — certainly not a small sum. However, van Clarke was so convinced of Smythe's and Rodriquez's intentions and authenticity that he did not hesitate to wire the $18,850 to the account of Royal Asset Management's bank in Hong Kong on December 15. According to van Clarke, this money was to cover handling, filing and transfer charges.

Two weeks later, van Clarke made a second wire transfer of $20,544.50 from his bank to the account of One Sky International, Ltd., also in Hong Kong. According to van Clarke, this was to cover his 25 percent share of the inheritance tax. It was at this time that van Clarke said he first questioned whether he was involved in a fraud. However, he ignored his doubts and convinced himself that the relationship was legitimate and continued paying the requested fees.

In January, van Clarke wired money to Hong Kong two more times. The first transfer was on January 17 for $15,000 to Fund Mind Investment, Ltd. The cover story for this fee was that $35,980 was required for an antiterrorist/antidrug-smuggling certificate. Part of this money was to be returned 60 days after the receipt of the inheritance. The remaining $20,980 was to be paid by William Smythe. The second transfer, on January 23 for $8,980, went to the account of Future Lending Contracting Co., Ltd. According to van Clarke, this payment was requested to cover a shortage in funds that William Smythe was supposed to pay for the aforementioned certificate.

It should be noted that these first four transfers were to Hong Kong — not Europe, where the inheritance, banks and attorneys were supposedly located. When I questioned van Clarke about this, his answer was simply "That is where they told me to send the money."

During the early part of February the scheme shifted back to Europe; more specifically, it moved to the United Kingdom. Between February 6 and February 17, van Clarke wired funds nine times to five different people. These were made via Western Union and ranged from $1,000 to $2,200. These smaller payments, according to van Clarke, were to pay for an attorney to prepare and present legal documents to the British High Court to facilitate the transfer of the inheritance.

At this point in the fraud, van Clarke was told that he would have to fly to Lambeth in the United Kingdom to collect his portion of the inheritance. Although van Clarke believed that he was involved in a scheme to illegally collect an inheritance, he was told — and believed — that there would be a "signing ceremony" when he collected his money.

Shortly before the so-called signing ceremony was to have taken place, van Clarke received an e-mail that the inheritance claim had been suspended. The e-mail was purportedly from a London law firm, the first time it had contacted van Clarke. According to the e-mail, the suspension was due to the fact that the "funds are deemed to be deficient of the mandatory Cost Conversion charge which invariably mandated the termination of the transfer from your account in the central data-base monitoring system in Europe by the European Monetary Institute (EMI)." The e-mail ended with the notice that van Clarke had five days to "resolve this impasse." Regrettably for him, van Clarke believed this gobbledygook.

Again van Clarke was asked to split the fees with William Smythe — Smythe would put up $30,000 and van Clarke would provide $40,000. Van Clarke said that he was convinced of Smythe's legitimacy because Smythe kept sharing the payment of the required fees with him. Of course, there was no Smythe and no sharing, but the victim would only learn of that after he'd been scammed. Van Clarke transferred his share of the funds in February — not to the London law firm demanding payment, but to an account in Hong Kong in the name of Fund Mind Investments, Ltd.

Once his $40,000 transfer was complete, van Clarke received an e-mail from someone named Peter Tanner at Royal Asset Management requesting an additional $35,330 to cover a shortage of funds that Smythe was supposed to have paid. Van Clarke became suspicious of the situation and sent an e-mail to William Smythe based on these suspicions:

In response to this e-mail, van Clarke received a copy of a passport that appeared to be issued by the United Kingdom in the name of William Smythe. If van Clarke had done an Internet search of the William Smythe at Buchwald Bank, he would have discovered the photograph attached to the passport was not that of the real William Smythe.

Satisfied with Smythe's passport, van Clarke wired an additional $35,300 to Taiwan as requested on March 7. Eight days later, van Clarke received an e-mail from Patrick Rodriguez at Royal Asset Management confirming the receipt of the latest money. In this e-mail Rodriguez informed van Clarke that because there had been a problem with the original transfer of the $35,300 (which should have come from Smythe), the transfer fees had expired and another $8,000 was required to cover the lapsed transfer fees. Two days later, van Clarke wired the $8,000 to a bank in Taiwan.

At the same time van Clarke received an e-mail from Tanner requiring funds be sent to two individuals in the United Kingdom by Western Union. This e-mail stated:

Western Union refused to wire the funds without physical descriptions of the recipients and held the money at their security department. The Western Union representative told van Clarke that frauds were being perpetrated against U.S. citizens and the funds were being sent to the United Kingdom. Van Clarke canceled the Western Union wire transfers and sent an e-mail to Smythe explaining the situation with Western Union. Van Clarke closed his e-mail with "If this is a big hoax I will be a joke, and probably my wife will leave me. I have used the equity in each of my properties." At this point van Clarke had wired more than $168,000 to various individuals.

During the end of March and through April, pressure was applied to van Clarke to provide additional funds. On April 5, van Clarke wired $8,000 into a bank in Curacao. According to e-mails between Smythe and van Clarke, this $8,000 was a portion of a $50,000 kickback to Peter Tanner, who was supposedly working to secure a release of the inheritance. Smythe and van Clarke each agreed to put up $25,000 toward this kickback.

Van Clarke's last large wire transfer, of $17,000, took place on May 1 to cover the remainder of his portion of the kickback. This money, like the previous $8,000, was wired to a bank in Curacao.

On May 17 van Clarke received an e-mail from Rodriguez at Royal Asset Management that provided him with the account information (account number and PIN number) where van Clarke's 30 percent of the inheritance was to be deposited. Between May 18 and May 25, van Clarke sent an additional $7,000, via Western Union, to two individuals to "dispatch a lawyer to see the Swiss Monitoring Team, who have put an embargo on the transfer" (e-mail from Tanner to van Clarke).

The last van Clarke heard from anyone involved in the fraud was on May 26, a day after the last transfer of funds. In an e-mail to van Clarke from Tanner, Tanner stated:

With this e-mail, the fraud against van Clarke came to a close.

The investigation into this fraud was initiated six months after van Clarke made his last payment to the perpetrators. This made tracing the wires virtually impossible, even with the assistance of a federal agency, to which my sheriffs office forwarded the report. As the lead investigator on the case, I had access to most of the e-mail communications van Clarke had with the various players in the scheme, but the accounts were dead ends. The funds had been withdrawn and the accounts were closed months ago. In an attempt to establish the perpetrators identities, I contacted their e-mail providers, but they either required no identifying information from their customers, or what they had on file for Smythe, Rodriguez and Tanner was fictitious. I was not able to identify the perpetrators of this crime, which meant I could not recover any of the money van Clarke had sent them. When I last spoke with van Clarke, he was paying more than $1,500 a month on the interest-only loans he took out on his properties to fund the wires he sent overseas.

Van Clarke also told me that his wife was devastated to learn of the inheritance scam and has since taken over control of the family's finances.

David Alan White, PhD, CFE, has been a law enforcement officer for more than 23 years and presently supervises an Economic Crimes Unit for a sheriff's office in Florida. Dr. White holds a bachelor's degree from Western New England College, a master's degree from American International College, a master's degree from Florida Gulf Coast University and a PhD from Northcentral University.