etee's Blog

Normally, the "Nigeria 419" type of scam follows a predictable set of patterns. Some political/military leader has been killed/deposed, and they (or their survivors) need to move lots of $$$$MONEY$$$$$ out of the country, and needs your help in moving them. In return for using your bank account to launder these funds, a certain percentage will be left behind in your account when the deal is finished. Or, someone (normally a foreigner) died in-country, left a lot of $$$$MONEY$$$$$ in a bank account, and some kind bank or government official has decided that, instead of allowing the funds to go to the government (which is where they revert to by law), they want your help in moving them out of the country. You are asked to send them your personal information, including in many cases your bank account information, so they can set up the transaction.

Of course, what they really want is the money you have in your accounts. And so, you get hit up for "administrative fees" (which is why this type of scam is known as Advanced Fee Fraud), and as you get closer to consummating the deal, more roadblocks present themselves, and you are asked for even more "fees", until you have no more money left to give them. Sometimes, if you are really unlucky, you are invited to travel to their country to finalize the deal, and when you show up without a visa (even though they may say otherwise, trying to enter Nigeria without a valid visa is a very bad idea, and they don't treat illegal aliens as nicely there as we do here), you are in effect held as a hostage for whatever extra ransom money they can screw out of your family. Then, when you are no longer of value to them, BANG!

Well, the example of why Nigeria's reputation in the world isn't exactly sterling that showed up in my inbox recently follows a slightly different pattern. First of all, it is not from Nigeria, or any other third-world nation. It is from somewhere in Jollie Olde England. (Or from Sweden, which until the recent "Non!" and "Nee!" votes were cast, had been expected to become one and the same.) Yes, England. Great Britain. The land of people nick-named after a citrus fruit -- and a green citrus fruit at that. And English cuisine. And a total lack of appreciation for the fine art of dentistry. And English cuisine. And the Mini Cooper. And, in case I forgot to mention, English cuisine! (Not to be confused with Scotland, where the men wear plaid skirts, toss telephone poles around for sport, play a musical instrument which sounds like a cat whose tail was just stepped on, and eat haggis -- which they create by feeding English cuisine to a sheep, then slaughtering it and cooking its stomach.) In addition, it has a slightly different story line (even though the end result is the same... to separate the mark from his $$$$MONEY$$$$$.)

So, without further ado...the spamm:

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Return-Path: []
Delivered-To: [the.me]@.net
Received: (qmail 36600 invoked from network); 1 Jun 2005 01:22:13 -0000
Received: from exprod5mx61.postini.com (HELO psmtp.com) (64.18.0.174)
by texas-tacc.com with SMTP; 1 Jun 2005 01:22:13 -0000
Received: from source ([212.74.114.37]) by exprod5mx61.postini.com ([64.18.4.10]) with SMTP;
Tue, 31 May 2005 18:22:11 PDT
Received: from mk-cpfront-4.mail.uk.tiscali.com ([212.74.114.6]:58097 helo=mk-cpfrontend.uk.tiscali.com)
by mk-smarthost-1.mail.uk.tiscali.com with esmtp (Exim 4.51)
id 1DdHv7-000JLe-Rm; Wed, 01 Jun 2005 02:21:21 +0100
Received: from [] by mk-cpfrontend.uk.tiscali.com with HTTP; Wed, 1 Jun 2005 02:21:23 +0100
Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 18:21:23 -0700
Message-ID: []
From: "Prof Charles Soludo" []
Subject: RE: OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
Reply-To: ">
MIME-Version: 1.0

Dissecting the headers, it looks like the email originates from , which according to WHOIS is registered to Quark Telecom Consulting Constellation Networks out of Sweden. The email then travels through several servers (I presume mail servers) belonging to Tiscali UK Limited out of London, UK, before arriving at my inbox (after passing through Postini's spam filters.)

OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR

CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA.
ABUJA

OurRef:FMA/PED/1473/99/CBN Date: 1st JUNE
2005.
PROF.CHARLES SOLUDO

Attn: PRESIDENT/DIRECTOR

YOUR IMMEDIATE CONTRACT PAYMENT

Our records of outstanding contractors due for payment,with the Federal
Government of Nigeria, Your name and company was discovered as next on the
list of the outstanding contractors who have not received their payments.
I wish to inform you that your payment is being processed and will be released
to you as soon as you respond to this letter.

Re-confirm to me the followings;

1) your full name.
2) Phone, fax and mobile #.
3) Company name, position and address.
4) Profession, age and marital status.

As soon as this information is received, your payment
will be made to you in a certified bank draft from central bank of Nigeria
(CBN) and a copy will be given to you for you to take to your bank for
confirmation. As soon as you receive this letter contact me for a
serious discussion with me.

Regards

PROF CHARLES SOLUDO.
The Executive Governor
Central Bank Of Nigeria(CBN)

_______________

Book yourself something to look forward to in 2005.
Cheap flights - http://www.tiscali.co.uk/travel/flights/
Bargain holidays - http://www.tiscali.co.uk/travel/holidays/

Well, isn't this special? And, on a side note: isn't it interesting how this type of email, even though it is coming from someone with a Very Important Sounding Title, is sent via some email service that appends advertisements to the message? I have a hard time taking such messages seriously, despite the sender's exhortations to "contact me for a serious discussion with me". Yeah, right.

As I said, this is interesting. (Well, actually, I didn't -- I said it was "special", which means "retarded" in this particular instance.) Trying to think really, really hard, I have never entered into any contract with the Government of Nigeria, or any other country that I recall, other than my enlistment contract with the US Air Force all those years ago. So where did they get my name from? Maybe from a "CD with millions of contractors emails" they bought off of some Internet site? Maybe the US Air Force sold my enlistment contract to the Government of Nigeria, and forgot to tell me about it?

And, take a look at what information they want me to "re-confirm" -- my profession and marital status? And what company I work for? And, of course, they want my position within the company, although they addressed this letter to the attention of, let us see... oh yeah, "PRESIDENT/DIRECTOR". Not only that, they don't want to know the bank account to put the payment into. Hmmm... sounds like CBN has changed their style a bit.

Now, looking a little deeper, it appears that whoever wrote that first sentence either (1) has, a comma, fetish, or (2) has read our Constitution and thought it was the benchmark for grammatical excellence -- especially Amendment the Second.

So, I guess I need to reply to Prof. Soludo right away, as I am going to be very rich! Right?

N'oh!

Post details: spamm, Skewered: The "Lads from Lagos" on a European Vacation

06/02/05

05:45:00 am spamm, Skewered: The "Lads from Lagos" on a European Vacation

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