Risk: Informational
Spam emails have taken a disturbing new turn, with spammers posing as hitmen in order to extract money from victims. The emails contain the subject line 'Read this to be safe and a new life in this new year' and state that the sender is a hired assassin, who has been stalking the recipient for 10 days. The sender also claims that they will drop the contract in exchange for a payment of $80,000.
The emails are constructed in very poor English and appear to be targeted at successful professional Americans. At present, it's not thought that anyone has fallen victim and paid out any money to these scammers.
The emails read as follows; spelling and grammatical errors appear as they do in the emails:
"Good day,
I want you to read this message very carefully, and keep the secret with you till further notice, You have no need of knowing who i am, where am from, till i make out a space for us to see, i have being paid $50,000.00 in advance to terminate you with some reasons listed to me by my employers, its one i believe you call a friend, i have followed you closely for one week and three days now and have seen that you are innocent of the accusation, Do not contact the police or F.B.I. or try to send a copy of this to them, because if you do i will know, and might be pushed to do what i have being paid to do, beside, this is the first time I turned out to be a betrayer in my job.
Now, listen, i will arrange for us to see face to face but before that i need the amount of $80,000.00 and you will have nothing to be afraid of. I will be coming to see you in your office or home determine where you wish we meet, do not set any camera to cover us or set up any tape to record our conversation, my employer is in my control now, You will need to pay $20,000.00 to the account i will provide for you, before we will set our first meeting, after you have make the first advance payment to the account, i will give you the tape that contains his request for me to terminate you, which will be enough evidence for you to take him to court (if you wish to), then the balance will be paid later.
You don't need my phone contact for now till am assured you are ready to comply good.
Lucky You."
Shortly after the scam was exposed, other emails started to circulate that claimed to be sent from the FBI. The emails state that an individual has been arrested regarding several UK and US murders, that the email's recipient is identified as being the assassin's next target and that they should contact the FBI in London. The FBI recommends that if anybody receives an email with personally identifiable information, they should file a complaint at: