Gotta love these spam e-mails. This one actually got a response though.
Original e-mail (got it saturday/sunday:
Dear Friend,
I am Larisa Sosnitskaya and I represent Mr. Mikhail Khordokovsky the former C.E.O of Yukos Oil Company in Russia. I have a very sensitive and confidential brief from this top (oligarch) to ask for your partnership in re-profiling funds US$46 Million. I will give the details, but in summary, the funds are coming via Bank Menatep. This is a legitimate transaction. You will be paid 20% as your commison/compensation for your active efforts and contribution to the success of this transaction.
You can catch more of the story on This website below or you can watch more of CNN or BBC to get more news about my boss.
http://www.mosnews.com/mn-files/khodorkovsky.shtml
http://www.mbktrial.com/http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3213505.stm
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/04/11/041.html
http://www.nndb.com/people/633/000025558/
If you are interested, please do indicate by providing me with your
confidential telephone number,fax number and email address and I will
provide further details and instructions. Please keep this confidential as we cannot afford more political problems. Please do send me your response as soon as possible via my either of my personal email:
[email protected]
look forward to it.
Regards,
Larisa Sosnitskaya
My reply:
"So why do you want my personal information?"
His reply:
"Dear Richard Martin,
I read your email and I understand your point. I will not struggle to
persuade you. I will only provide you with the real picture of the whole
situation and I hope you will understand.
Firstly, I will want to know your occupation and your age. You should note
that this project is highly capital intensive. This is why I have to be very
careful.
Secondly, Secondly, I will like to bring your notice the present situation
of things with me here in Russia. As you know already, my boss is presently
in detention for tax related offences which we all know is a political
strategy aimed at frustrating him. My Boss got arrested for his involvement
in politics by financing the leading and opposing political parties (the
Union of Right Forces, Led by Boris Nemtsov, and Yabloko, a liberal/social
democratic party Led by Gregor Yavlinsky) which poses treat to President
Vladimir Putin Second Tenure as Russian president. Due to this, all close
associates of my boss (including me) were placed in a black book and an
investigation on our personal/financial activities was commenced. Even right
now, the investigation is still very much on. When we (My boss and I) first
concluded our discussion on this project, I contacted two Russians on two
occasions (the first in UK and the other in Slovenia) for a hand of
partnership in this transaction. The first one withdrew suddenly after we
had progressed reasonably for reasons i do not know (he chose not to say a
word about it) and with the second one I progressed to almost the concluding
point when suddenly, one evening I got a brief telephone call from him
telling me that all my activities are being monitored and the secret service
had contacted him and they want him to work with them by providing relevant
documents and information about our transaction to be used as evidence
against My boss in court. I will not give more details on that for now but
this is actually one reason why I decided not to deal with a Russian on this
issue.
I need your total devotion and trust to see this through. I know we have not
met before, but I am very confident that we would be able to establish the
necessary trust that we need to execute this project.
Before I commence, I will need you to send me any valid copy of your
identification document (Driver's license or International passport) . I
really want to ensure that we authenticate our identity and affirm our
business relationship. As soon as I get these from you, I will commence the
paper work.
Please reconfirm details below:
i) Your full names
(ii) Your full address.
(iii) Contact Telephone and Fax numbers
(iv) Your occupation, official position and experience in your field.
I hope you will understand why I need all these. The money in question is
big and I want to ensure that I know you well before I proceed to give you
all the other details to commence the project.I will send the name and
contact details of the bank to you so that you can establish a
correspondence with them.
As soon as I get the required details from you as listed above, i am going
to ask my attorney to draft an agreement letter which i will send to you to
sign. Since you will stand as a contractor with Yukos Oil, I will also send
to you a document that will put you in place as a contractor with Yukos Oil.
It is this document that will serve as a cover for the funds in case at any
point the authority wishes to know the origin of the source of the funds .
As soon as i am through with the document, I will send them to you.
I want you to see yourself as partner in this transaction, as i have
perfected all modalities to actualize this transaction.
I await your email.
Regards,
Larisa.
_________________________________________________________________
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That was Sunday. I haven't responded since.
I just got a new one:
"Dear Richard Martin,
I sent you an email as regards my propsal to you and till now i have heard
nothing from you. Please let me know if you are interested in this or not.
Have a nice day and regards to you and your family.
Regards,
Larisa Sosnitskaya"
Now, what do I do? Anyone got fake ID that they can use to send to him? Or shall I go with the "sorry I didn't reply, I have exams and mom doesn't allow me on the PC?" (It's the fault of whoever posted that laptop thread, and made me re-read the P-P-P-P-Powerbook saga.)
I doubt it's real - I can't see why I'd be chosen ....