Money Spam Leaked into LinkedIn (1)

There are two kinds of spam:  love and money.  Recently I wrote Skype Troll Steals Dead Teen's Name, which had the makings of a romantic proposal.  Then, this past Friday, the following fund sharing message arrived in my LinkedIn Inbox:

Hello Villejo,

I am sorry to contact you unannounced through this medium. I am Mr. Mohammed Khalil a staff of Barclays bank Dubai, United Arab Emirate and Head of Administration and Government Relations at Barclays Bank PLC UAE. I write you this proposal in good faith hoping that I will rely on you. In 2006, one Mr. Daniel Villejo who has same surname as yours and who has your country in his file as his place of origin, made a fixed deposit for 36 calendar months, valued at $18,400,000.00 with my bank. I was his account officer before I rose to the position of Managing Director now. The maturity date for this deposit contract was 16th of January 2009. Unfortunately, while on a business trip, he died in a deadly earthquake that occurred on May 12, 2008 in Sichuan province of China which killed at least 68,000 people. Since the last quarter of 2009 until today, the management of Barclay's bank have been finding a means to reach him so as ascertain if he will want to roll over the Deposit or have the contract sum withdraw. Since September 2009, when I discovered that this will happen, I learn of his death, so I have tried to think up a procedure to preserve this fund and use the proceed for charity.

Some directors here have been trying to find out from me the information about this account and the owner, but I have kept it closed because, I know that if they become aware that Mr. Daniel is now late, they will corner the funds for themselves. Therefore, I am seeking your co-operation to present you as the one to benefit from his fund at his death since you have the same name, so that my bank head quarters will pay the funds to you. I have done enough inside bank arrangement and you only have to put in your details into the information network in the bank computers and reflect you as his next of kin. I am not a greedy person, so I am suggesting we share the funds equal, 50/50% to both parties My share will assist me to start a charity organization to help the poor and also own a company which has been my dream. Let me know your mind on this and please do treat this information as TOP SECRET. We shall go over the details once I receive your urgent response strictly through my personal email address, mohammadkhalilem@gmail.com.

Have a nice day.

Best regards,

Mr. Mohammed Khalil
mohammadkhalilem@gmail.com

This spammer's command of English is better than most, as its import is pretty clear, but it's shaky enough to make me suspicious (e.g., "I write you this proposal in good faith hoping that I will rely on you").

It's a clever ploy to reference my last name, and no doubt fabricate a person with that same name (i.e., Daniel Villejo).  I hadn't seen this ploy before, but the absence of an honorific (e.g., Mr. or Sir) in his address of me is also suspicious.

The third suspicious point is this:

(image credit)

The gentleman in the photo looked familiar to me, so when I received a connect invite from him and saw his position and company, I accepted.  But I decided to search for this photo on Google Images  and for this name on LinkedIn.  I didn't find anything on the photo, but I found the following profile.

(image credit)

I think the spammer stole this gentleman's identity, and opened a new profile.

But even if the points in his first paragraph were all legitimate, his proposal in the second paragraph is flatly criminal.  I wonder how many targets he's sent this message to, and how any (if any) took the bait.  It's also possible that this profile and message were fabricated by officials in the UAE, and they're attempting to entrap people as criminal accomplices.

Regardless, this is rather serious shit.

So I removed this spammer from my connections, and reported his message to LinkedIn.