RE: Aquatic Plants Digest V5 #76

["Charles Kuehnl" <ckuehnl at mmcable_com>]

> Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 12:36:30 -0500
> From: "Gamera" <Gamera at attbi_com>
> Subject: Weird E-mails
> 
> Has anyone else on this list received a weird e-mail from "Blessing
Musa"
> regarding importation of goods into Nigeria and the use of personal
bank
> accounts to hold millions of dollars?  This very odd e-mail was sent
to my
> e-mail account, which is used only for APD and TAOPA.  So, I don't
know
> how else they could have gotten my e-mail address except for scouring
the
> archives.  What is also odd is that the e-mail was addressed solely to
me,
> not a whole list of other recipients.  Just wondering if anyone else
got
> this?
> 
> - -Gamera

I know this is off the list topic but ignore this e-mail and I would
forward the e-mail to the authorities.

I have not received the one you mentioned (I am not on the TAOPA list)
but do have a little personal experience with the Nigerian situation.  I
used to work for a company that would get a letter with a similar
message to the one you described about every six months.  They wanted
our bank account number to use it for deposit of a substantial sum of
money or need a line of credit to facilitate doing some sort of business
that is impossible for them to do only from Nigeria.  They would send
the request along with a letterhead that you were to sign at the bottom
so they could fill it in and then fill your account with money.  Yeah
right!  There are apparently many other ruses but we figured that the
net effect is they drain your account of all funds.  

At my former employment we all got a pretty good laugh but never did
anything with it.  However, we just happened to share the building with
the FBI.  Naturally, we ran into many of them on a regular basis at the
only restaurant/watering hole in the building.  We asked them about it.
They let us in on the scam.  Nigeria apparently has one of the most
corrupt banking/business systems in the world.  This sort of thing is
rampant over there, really just the tip of the iceberg so to speak. I
had heard this had died down but perhaps with the FBI busy with the
terrorists those guys thought they might try it again.  I would call
someone at the FBI or Treasury and forward the e-mail to them.  Who
knows, perhaps it is a group of terrorists looking for new ways to get
money now that we are shutting down many of their bank accounts.

Charles