Yemeni assassin hits York man with spam death threat A software engineer form York has been left nonplussed after a group of hired guns from the Yemen Arab Republic claimed to have been contracted to "terminate" him with extreme prejudice. Charles Anderson told El Reg he received an email last week from a "Gladlord Mohammed" informing him that "i have being paid $200,000.00 in …
... I mean come on... a restaurant in Bangor, I take it that was your first visit?
Back on topic, these guys aren't very professional 'cleaners' they are willing to forgo 200k in exchange for 50k, I know which I'd prefer including keeping professional reputation as well.
Now police finally has reason to go anal on the spammers. A clear death threat, what do they need more ? "Gimme money or I must kill you".
In Germany that's called an Offizialdelikt, which means a State Attorney *must* start to investigate the threat. I am sure something similar applies to most other countries.
Maybe I should check my spam-inbox....
Investigate how? The trail will only end up in an Internet cafe in a country with an inefficient and/or corrupt police force.
Hitlads are the bottom feeders of the scamming pool. They can frighten people, but I've not heard of anyone paying up. They are much prized by baiters.
http://www.scamorama.com/prolite_agnes_hitlad.html (possibly NSFW)
The German Ministry of the Interior (Home Ministry) apparently developed a kind of "official malware" to got after miscreants:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online-Durchsuchung
Investigating a death threat would in my opinion be one of the few good reasons to use this technology.
Just reply with a malware-loaded html/gif/jpeg/avi/mpeg mail that will infiltrate the miscreants hopefully badly protected systems (do Spammers run as Administrator ?), use the (hopefully available) camera to shoot photos, gather intel, and then send a warrant to Interpol.
Third-world countries are often tolerant regarding financial scams, but death threats are normally a no-no even in Nigeria and Yemen.
Picture of Federal Malware.
In England, typically the police will only investigate AFTER the ex-boyfriend walks into a high-street shop and kills his ex-girlfriend, despite the police being told BEFOREHAND about the high chance of it happening.
...and from the sounds of this email, the chance of the "death threat" being carried out is low.
On the other hand though, when a 7 year old sounding boy telephones in a bomb alert at his local school, everyone takes it seriously! (What's wrong with just saying you want the day off because you have a sore throat?)
Maybe the police aren't too interested in internet scams.
But threatening to kill someone unless you're paid off, that's demanding money with menaces. Charley boy should be heading to the polis PDQ and getting this reported. If Gladlord is in the UK, he's in a world of hurt. And a lot of other countries around the world would not be very happy about this. Even Nigeria are having a bit of a go at stopping 419ers, bless them.
That said, if Gladlord is genuinely in Yemen, you're probably SOL in getting anyone to do anything about it.
I had to explain to them that they weren't going to receive £450,000 and that the email received was a spam. As they had already been in phone contact with the scammers they then decided to tell them that they knew it was a scam and that they'd informed the police. A couple of days later they showed me an email they received from the "assasin" similar to this, except they were only asking for a grand (bargainous!).
Worst part was that they informed the council who then had to do a risk assessment on the "threat", as they might have to have been moved <sigh>.
El Reg reported on this about three years ago:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/12/hit_man_spam_scam/
One of my users received a similar threat from Kenya, and demanded that I call in the police. I pointed out that article and told him that he had more chance of being run over by stampeding giraffes than of being rubbed out by some mysterious assassin.
(Unless the stampeding giraffes were a Kenyan hit squad in disguise)
Telling the 'hit man' that its not the money, but that its the principal that he doesn't negotiate with terrorists. If the 'hit man' has had a change of heart, he should just keep his initial $200K retainer and move on.
If not, well then... the internet works both ways and that he shouldn't mind the fact that its far cheaper to bribe a local police official to kill the 'would be "hitman"' for a mere $20K.
But I am confused about one thing... York is in the UK. The FBI and currency are in the US.
:-)
That's because the spammer sent this "threat" to a couple of thousand people. The fact the particular recipient that actually passed it onto this site is in the UK and not the US (as the spammer had hoped) is a mere coincidence. It's like when you receive mail from "Bank A" about "your account details need confirming" even though you don't even bank with BANK A.
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