Jack Straw, who as the British home secretary in the past headed a National Hi-Tech Crime Unit to crack down on computer hackers, had himself become victimized by Nigerian Internet fraudsters. The crooks managed to gain access to a Hotmail account that Straw utilized to answer questions from voters in his Blackburn constituency. The password was divulged when Straw answered a fake email saying that the email account would be suspended unless a reply was given.

Mistakenly, a staff member in Straw’s office fell for the scam and sent a reply last Thursday. This provided the fraudsters enough sensitiveinformation to hack into the account and learn the  the names of hundreds of Straw’s contacts in his Hotmail address book, from Labour party members to council bosses. Subsequently, fake emails with the official heading “The Right Hon Jack Straw MP” began being sent around Blackburn. Bewildered voters were reading a personal plea from the Justice Secretary for help after finding himself marooned while visiting Lagos, Nigeria’s capital, for a project called Empowering Youth To Fight Racism.