Forget the scam Nigerian prince. Now it’s Nigerian astronauts.
In outrageous news this week, UK based website Anorak reported on perhaps one of the most bizarre email scams we’ve seen… well, ever.
In their inbox landed an Advance Fee scam, often referred to as 419 scams. 419 scams try and trick victims into sending money through Western Union on the condition that they will receive a much larger pay-out. Only the larger pay-out never comes, because it never existed. These often take the guise of Nigerian princes or lawyers wanting your help to move large quantities of money out of the country.
But the one Anorak.co.uk received took a more… original… direction.
It told of the unfortunate story of Air Force Major Abacha Tunde, who, according to the scam email, is an African astronaut who has been stranded in space since 1990. Apparently Tunde travelled to a secret Soviet space station back in 1989, and since the Soviet Union dissolved in 1990, he’s had no way of travelling back.
The scam email wants your help getting him back, by agreeing to have his on-going wages (that have now amounted to an impressive 15 million dollars) transferred to you. Yes, apparently the astronauts employers can’t get him back, but they’re still paying him a handsome wage. For your help, you get 20% of his wages, which amounts to a cool 3 million. Not bad for a day’s work.
Apparently the man behind the scam email needs the money to be transferred to you so he can access it to arrange a flight back for the stranded astronaut. He can’t access the money himself apparently, because he can’t operate a foreign bank account, seeing as he’s a civil servant.
The email reads in part –
I am Dr. Bakare Tunde, the cousin of Nigerian Astronaut, Air Force Major Abacha Tunde. He was the first African in space when he made a secret flight to the Salyut 6 space station in 1979. He was on a later Soviet spaceflight, Soyuz T-16Z to the secret Soviet military space station Salyut 8T in 1989. He was stranded there in 1990 when the Soviet Union was dissolved. His other Soviet crew members returned to earth on the Soyuz T-16Z, but his place was taken up by return cargo. There have been occasional Progrez supply flights to keep him going since that time. He is in good humor, but wants to come home.
In the 14-years since he has been on the station, he has accumulated flight pay and interest amounting to almost $ 15,000,000 American Dollars. This is held in a trust at the Lagos National Savings and Trust Association. If we can obtain access to this money, we can place a down payment with the Russian Space Authorities for a Soyuz return flight to bring him back to Earth. I am told this will cost $ 3,000,000 American Dollars. In order to access the his trust fund we need your assistance.
Consequently, my colleagues and I are willing to transfer the total amount to your account or subsequent disbursement, since we as civil servants are prohibited by the Code of Conduct Bureau (Civil Service Laws) from opening and/ or operating foreign accounts in our names.
Okay, so the email makes no sense on several levels, much less that the longest anyone has ever spent in space is a little over a year and that wasn’t without its potential health consequences. If Tunde was in space since 1990, that’s 26 years (not 14 years as quoted in the email.) Oh and the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, not 1990.
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But believe it or not, there is a logic behind creating such absurd scam emails. You may be thinking who on Earth (pun intended) would fall for such a scam. But therein lies the point – because you think like that, you are no good to 419 scammers. Basically, you’d make a lousy target.
The idea is that if you can be persuaded to respond to such a ridiculous scam email, you’ll more than likely be persuaded out of your savings. So the utter nonsensical nature of these scam emails effectively acts as a filtering process, eliminating anyone who has even an ounce of scepticism so the scammers can focus their attention on the most vulnerable.
Whether anyone has ever fallen for this scam email is unknown. You can read the email in full at Anorak.co.uk here.
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