419

It's been modified from the advance fee fraud e-mails that we are used to and someone has been to writing lessons.

It starts with an unusual approach, then moves into the same technique as we've seen from this name dozens of times over many years.

Oh, and he uses UN.ORG as the "from" address. Cheeky.

adviserangelo0@gmail.com (Advisor Angelo) writes under the subject line "VERY URGENT!!!!!!!!!"

Obviously, one has to pay careful attention to such a missive.

The situation in Afghanistan is appalling. Exactly how appalling, we cannot know unless we are present. As journalists fly in, report from the tarmac or, in one case, from just outside the airport gates as bullets flew, we get a multitude of one-dimensional pictures that create a collage but not a cohesive whole. Stories of abuse are rife but on the other hand so are stories that the Taliban is far from the version of 20 years ago. All we can say is that the situation is extraordinarily complex, dangerous and it's likely to become far, far worse.

In the middle of all of this, a mail arrives. It's headed "Urgent request from Mohammed."

I am so blessed. This chap has purloined money from a cryptocurrency account and wants to send it to me. So he chose an address at antimoneylaundering.net.

We haven't seen this one for a while, or rather we've not seen it in this format.

The simplest and oldest 419 scam is back in time for Christmas.

And once more, Google is complicit. Look at the "reply to" address. How is not possible that they are not required to identify and block things such as this? Oh, yes. They say "we are google. We are big. You can bog off."

You just know it's going to be a fraud when the subject line reads "[email address], KINDLY GET BACK TO ME ASAP!!!"

When the "from" is a pretentious name for a law firm ('SMITH GLOBAL LAW') and the address an obviously fictitious "Smithlegaloffice@Un.org" The deal is almost sealed. That final nail in the coffin of the approach is the return address: Smithlegaloffice@mail.ru . If he'd sent from that, our filters which automatically delete undelivered and unread items from mail.ru would have meant it didn't reach its target.

But we're glad it did - for it's a demonstration of the cyclical nature of fraud. This is a genuinely vintage classic.

There's more than USD2,000 million in moneys clawed back from fraudulent deals.

Oh, wait. It's a spam-scam. And it wants you to send your identification documents "via" a telephone number. Genius.

We get the best of the best when it comes to examples of rubbish spam-scams. This just made our day.

We can barely contain the laughter. This scam e-mail is the same old same old but unlike so many, it's beautifully written. But what's not funny is that Microsoft and Google continue to facilitate fraudulent conduct.

Aw, bless, as they say in London's East. This scam is just so funny it's sad. It's supposedly from a central bank. Guess who's?

14/05/2018 03:16:52 GMT
Jeremy Matthew (jjremtheews@yahoo.com)