Nigerian officials have launched a new initiative called "Project Eagle Claw" that will target Internet scams coming out of the country. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has already made a number of arrests and shut down 800 websites, with many more to come.

It turns out Nigeria is taking measures to fight Internet scams—law enforcement there has shut down close to a thousand websites and made 18 arrests as part of a new initiative to save the nation's reputation and crack down on Internet scammers. The program, called "Project Eagle Claw," has only just begun, but Nigerian officials expect it to be fully operational in 2010.

Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) described the initiative as "a renewed bid to clap down" (*clap clap*?) on Internet fraudsters. So far, the agency claims to have shut down 800 scam sites in addition to making the arrests, with many more apparently to come.

EFCC Chairman Farida Waziri said Wednesday during a US address to the National Conference of Black Mayors that Nigeria was working with Microsoft to fully deploy Project Eagle Claw, and that it will soon be able to take down up to 5,000 fraudulent e-mails per month. She also expects the system to send up to 230,000 advisory e-mails to victims every month.

more.. link to news article

While I applaud the effort, I most definitely would advise against them sending out emails - what a great new phishing opportunity that would be.

The Nigerians I have met as medical residents were some of the nicest and most intelligent humans I have had the honor to meet. I hope the government of Nigeria can find something more productive to tempt its intelligent citizens to do than fleecing sheeple.