Variations
A new variation on the Nigerian letter scam has cropped up, ABC News is reporting. This one sends an email to potential victims claiming to be from a rogue US soldier. The scam is the usual pattern, however. The "soldier" claims he has come into a large sum of ill-gotten loot and asks for the victims help in spiriting out of Iraq. Please send them your banking information, and you get a cut.
Bogus e-mails from purported rogue U.S. military servicemen are being sent as part of a spam e-mail scam, FBI officials told ABC News.
The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, known as IC3, issued an alert Tuesday warning of the spam scam in which e-mails are made to appear as though they come from crooked soldiers asking recipients for help in moving war loot out of Iraq.
"In this particular case, they've got what appears to be a rogue GI who is looking to take money looted from Iraq and get it out of Iraq to the United States and try to prey on the greed of American citizens," Shawn Henry, deputy assistant director of the FBI's cyber division, told ABC News.
The e-mails vary in content, but in general, they explain how a purported U.S. serviceman has found tens of millions of dollars in Iraq. Some of the e-mails claim that the funds were taken from terrorists and insurgents who were using the money to buy bombs and ammunition.
One e-mail claimed the sender has survived two suicide bomb attacks and is eager to start a new life.
The e-mails request help in bringing the money to the United States and ask recipients to provide personal information to begin the transaction. The scammers promise participants a cut of the reputed funds, and then try to get bank account information from the recipients to finish the transaction.
The scammers have no shame whatsoever, of course. If you get one of these you should contact the FBI at once. They can be reached at the Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov. Under no circumstances should you open any attachments - they are almost certain to be trojans or malicious software. (Frankly, I have a hard time mustering up a lot of sympathy for folks who fall for this sort of thing. They have larceny in their hearts to even think about cooperating with something like this. But that is another discussion.)
By Chris, Wednesday, 18 July , 2007 @ 9:10 am
I have received a couple of these. I delete them, of course. I have no time to spare for these charlatans, having won the UK lottery several times now.
By Bleepless, Wednesday, 18 July , 2007 @ 8:43 pm
I’m proud — damned proud — of this. Ordinary charlatans wanting to share ill-gotten gains with me usually deal with the low millions. But the con artists pretending to be our brave fighting men are up in the nine figures. Only in America. Yay, team!