Three Kings of Nigeria

The following slithered into my e-mail box the other day :

Dear Sir,

NOT FOR THIRD PARTY (CONFIDENTIAL)
AND I WANT YOU TO UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS
NOT A HOAX MAIL, IT IS REAL.

With a very desperate need for assistance, I have summed up courage to contact you.I am an army Sgt. from Fort Hood Tx. now serving with the third infantry contingent mission stationed in Iraq; I actually found your contact particulars in a business journal.

I am seeking your experience and assistance to evacuate the sum of $18.5Million United Sates Dollars to USA or any other safe country. This is no stolen funds, and there are no risks involved.

SOURCE OF FUNDS:
During the third month of the raid here in Iraq, Myself and a few other soldiers while conducting a routine search in a location near one of Saddam.s old palaces, uncovered large sums of money buried in barrels with piles of weapons and ammunitions which we believed must have been part of Saddam's hidden treasure. We agreed not to turn over the cash or declare it to our authorities that brought us here, so we shared it amongst ourselves, since there was noting we could do having considered that there is no amount or kind of compensation that can make up, be quantified,or justify the risks we have taken with our lives in this hell hole.

I was given the sum of $18.5 Million Dollars as my own share, and had nowhere to conceal such bulk monies here, so I had to employ the services of a contact to me by a German colleague. The said contact facilitated the movement of the funds to a safer location entirely outside Iraq, it was deposited in a security vault in a finance house outside iraq for safety purpose.

What he knows is that the funds belong to an Asian American who died in the war, and trusted me to turn in the money to his family. One passionate appeal I will make to you is not to discuss this matter with any third party, should you have reasons to reject this offer, please destroy this mail, as any leakage of this information will be too bad for us.
I do not know for how long we will remain here, and I have survived two suicide bomb attacks by the grace of God.

It may be difficult for us to communicate frequently for security reasons, so as soon as I am sure you are willing to help, I will link you up with the contact and close
confidant who will work with you to get the money into your care. On your immediate correspondence with the contact which I will introduce to you, he will need to release to you the document and secret code in which the funds was safeguarded with so you can proceed for claim and collection, but only when he has ascertained your seriousness and totality to commit your time in seeing to the success of this. We will also discuss your percentage when it is convenient to do so but the first thing is for you to get hold of the funds first.

In the meantime, please contact me through my private email address: (info-james@steam.to)

Respectfully,
Billy.

Someone in Lagos been watching too many movies.

As usual, they also need to brush up on their idiomatic English.

But I won't bet that someone, somewhere won't fall for it. It costs them almost nothing to make a mesage like this, and even if the odds are 1 in a million of success, if they send it 10 million times....

If they weren't making money with this type of scam, it wouldn't be so common.