Nigerian scammers have decided to skip the middleman and go straight to the bank. According to the NY Times, the scammers convinced the sharp minds at Citibank that they represented the National Bank of Ethiopia. The bank duly wired $27 million to the scammers. Citibank only became aware of the fraud when the folks from Ethiopia noticed some unauthorized withdrawals and some of the recipient banks weren't able to process the transactions.
Citi has refunded the money to Ethiopia--not a hard thing for them to do since they aren't lending the billions in taxpayer bailout funds they have received.
From the Times:
Read the full story here.