When Chemists Attack

Here’s something that dropped into my inbox a long time ago – found when getting rid of some of my backlog of e-mail:


Received: from omail6.walla.co.il ([192.118.71.126])
by montgomery.mail.atl.earthlink.net (EarthLink SMTP Server) with ESMTP id 1coFL34U23Nl3qB0
for ; Mon, 1 Nov 2004 12:14:16 -0500 (EST)
Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 16:03:10 +0200
Received: from ([81.58.46.194])
by omail6.walla.co.il ([192.118.71.126]) with HTTP;
Mon, 01 Nov 2004 16:03:10 +0300
From: mitchel motte <mitchelmotte@walla.com>
X-Sender: mitchelmotte@walla.com
X-Originating-Email: [mitchelmotte@walla.com]
X-Originating-IP: [81.58.46.194]
Subject: ASSISTANCE
Message-Id: <1099317790.273000-60478774-23981@walla.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0


(This junk mail sure does get around!)

My name is Mr Mitchel Motte,Chairman of contract award and monitoring committee of Ministry of Urban and rural development ,my duty as empowered by the Mauritius Government is to provide the basic amenities,social recreational activities in urban and rural areas,This programm includes assistance to deprived Local communities and to co-ordinate projects and development at the national level, Furthermore, from this projects we have been able to secure some reasonable amount of U.S.$22.3m(twenty two Million Three Hundred Thousand U.S.Dollars Only)as commision from various Contractors resulting from over invoicing ,hence all the necessary approvals has been completed.

These approved fund is now packaged and despatched through a security company for onward delivery to its final destination.

These fund are first deposited into a vault security before we arrange for its movement to Europe through diplomatic channel using decoy purporting that the fund belongs to an expatriate/company , as we are Government officiale ,we are not allowed to operate/own foreign bank account,Hence we need you to stand as the beneficiary and claim the fund on our behalf from the security company.

Presently I am now in Europe to search for a reliable person/company of high intergrity /dignity and one with conscience who will claim this fund on our behalf as the beneficiary,and we have agreed to give you 25% of the total sum as commission for your assistance/effort. And 5% will be used to settle every expenses incurred. We will use 70% to invest under your recommendations and guide and to go into Joint venture business with you.

The following will be needed from you;

1. I will like you to provide me immediately with your full names & address so that the attorney will prepare the necessary documents & affidavits,which will put you as next of kin.
2. We shall employ the services of two attorneys for drafting & notarization and obtain the necessary documents and letter of probate/administration in your favour for the consignments.
3. Telephone and Fax numbers for an effective communication and briefing.

I will greatly appreciate your assistance .As I look forward to your response as
soon as possible.

Best regards,
Mr Mitchel Motte
Private Email:mitchelmotte@netscape.net

419 scams, also called "Nigerian scams" or "advance fee fraud" are nothing new. This particular e-mail is amusing because it doesn’t seem to know what kind of scam it is. The e-mail talks about moving some money through diplomatic channels (opening the way for the scammers to ask for fees to bribe nonexistent officials to move the nonexistent money), and then out of the blue wants you to be a next of kin to someone (another common variation of the scam is that a rich person has died, leaving behind a huge fortune that the scammer for some reason wants to share). Who died? If the scammer can’t even keep his scam straight, how on earth will he actually manage to convince someone to send him a few thousand bucks by Western Union money transfer?

And don’t you love the irony? They seek a person "with conscience" to help steal money from a program to provide assistance to poor urban people.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 13th, 2006 at 1:03 pm and is filed under Silly stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.