A friend of mine received the following email over the weekend, and I forwarded it to Freddy Deknatel who asks whether there’s a poetential here for a sequel to “Three Kings.” (Freddy has been doing an excellent job presenting documents from Iraq on his blog–covering soliders’ experiences not only from the contemporary conflict but also from the beginning of the last century.) The email is purportedly from a soldier in the U.S. army but it promises a scam that will go further than what the Nigerians were able to do–or, perhaps as likely, this is a new turn in the career of the Nigerian email scam-artists:

From: “Capt.Brown Hugh”
Subject: PLEASE CONTACT ME

Please I am Captain Brown Smith of the US Marine currently serving in Iraq.

On Monday 19 June, 2006 we received an urgent call from northern Baghdad that some terrorist group camped there. Consequestly, my battallion were sent there to forestall their activities.

Sensing our presence, they opened fire on us.We returned fire on them,after which some of them were caught.After intense torture,they took us to Karbala near Baghdad.On reaching there they took us to a deserted building where they kept their weapons. Atfer intense search one of them took us to one of the rooms .

In the room were three metal boxes. I opened them to my amazement, they were loaded with the US dollars. I was dumbfounded, I asked one of them he told me that they were into illegal crude oil sales and also that they do receive financial support from other islamic fundamentalist groups.

On return to our base, I hid the metal boxes in my personal room as the squardon commandant. At night of the same day, I
counted the money it amounted to $7.6 million USD in $100 denomination.

Now, I need a reliable person to send this money to, please give me your name, contact address,phone number and bank account number so that I can send the money if you are interested. You have 30%, while I have the rest. I will come down there immediately you receive it. I will even reign from my job.

Above all, try to keep this information secret and confidential Don’t disclose it to anybody for security reasons and to protect my job with the US Marine. Please contact me with this email address:captbrownhugh@yahoo.com.

Yours sincerely,
Captain Brown Hugh .

The photo above is from Freddy’s website. Charlie Company, First Marine Battalion, Eighth Regiment, Fallujah, December 2004. Photograph by Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times

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