Con artists are using the internet to siphon money for tsunami relief by mass mailing pleas worldwide from fictional tsunami survivors begging for assistance, cyber crime analysts in India said on Monday.

A few days after the December 26 disaster that killed more than 227,000 people, dozens of con artists cropped up sending out messages for donations via mobile phones, posting fraudulent emails seeking donations and phishing websites to direct donors to give them money, the analysts said.

"Some of them even pretended to be donors themselves. It's a huge problem," says Na Vijayashankar, a cyber law consultant in India.

Phishers, a term used for people who steal personal information via the internet or direct people away from legitimate websites, were siphoning millions of dollars intended for tsunami relief from unsuspecting people, Vijayashankar said.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation recently issued a warning for a wave of "fake generosity cases" for tsunami relief on the internet, he said.

Another investigator noted the case of Ram-Kisha Narayan, who claimed to be a fisherman from Klauluta, a seaside town in southern Sri Lanka.

He sent out hundreds of emails soon after the disaster claiming his wife and three children died and his house and fishing boat were swept away.

"The suspicious part of this email is that the bank account information included is at Postbank in the Netherlands," said Niraj Firecat, the India head of Trend Micro, a Tokyo-based software firm dealing in anti-virus and internet security services.

He said the email's domain could not be traced to any particular user.

It was common for phishers to pretend to be donors and ask for the account information from donation-seekers and charitable institutions, which in turn are used to swindle, Firecat said.

Phishers target tsunami donations... these phishers are trying to con people of their money and donations. If you want to donate to the tsunami relief effort, donate your donations to your local Red Cross office.