Re: purported email from "David Martins"

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from "J. R. Fox"  on Wed, 19 Feb 2003
10:46:36 -0800


> a variant of the infamous "Nigerian Scam"

They're always fun to read. I must have gotten 40 of these in the last year.
The first time I ever got one, I "bit" to the extent that I phoned the South
African Embassy to report an attempted absconding of state funds. Which report
met with some hilarity on their part. I think one guy writes them all; they
always have the same concoction of sincerity, imperfect English, and an
innovative story line; the writer is always a relation of some real-life
bigwig. I read somewhere that people who get ensnared in these things often
end up flying to African country X, where they are installed by their minders
in a hotel and start shelling out "bribes" to the tune of several hundred
thousand dollars, to "secure the release of the funds", which meets "just one
more" impediment after another. They are kept busy, meeting "department
heads", "ministers", etc., and gradually engrossed in the apparent
"wrongdoing"
such that they too become "criminal conspirators". They also discover that
they need exit visas to leave the country. Quite a brilliant concept.

-----------------------------
Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
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