Well, if they get you, at least we know where to start the investigation.

Dammit. Ikemba sounded so reliable on the phone, too.

This guy need a new career -- how about mortgage broker?

He didn't send the letter out until he found out that the cost to get his "boys" to Colebrook far exceeded the amount he is being paid to assassinate you.

Darn it!

I'd felt like such a special little snowflake, but it turns out that not only has Mr. Okoye been hired to perform a lot of hits, but he's been warning all his intended victims, and well over seven hundred of them have already posted his email to their web pages, livejournals, and/or blogs.

Y'know, one of the people who hired him is going to get really ticked off, and one day Mr. Okoye is going to get an email that begins, "I felt very sorry and bad for you...."

Uncle Jim-
Please feel free to use my ex-husband as a human shield.

Thanks ever so.

My very favorite part of this is that it's structured as an Evite.

I really wish there was some way to reliably track, capture and incarcerate these asshats.

He's really stamping all over the hitman-client privilege. He'd better get a lawyer...

What's with the French language? Someone hired Jean Reno?

Heheheh. Obviously his plan to lull you into a false sense of security is working like a charm...oops, I mean...um.

Sorry -- is that a "SOMEONE YOU CALL YOUR FRIEND, WANTS YOU DEAD" Yahoo group?

Not like this spammer is ever going to be caught, but this has to be more illegal than 419 fraud.

It's interesting how he had to truncate it to fit it into the eVite format. There's a standard version of this that's been going around for a couple years, which has scared some naïfs half to death.

You can reliably identify the original by the phrase "might just spear your life". This has led to some fine snarking around the 'net.

Dear Ikemba

Ah, but I know who hired you to kill me, and I've arranged for them to be taken care of. So if you kill me, you won't get paid.

Also, my house is mined.

Mr. Eko had to find new work after he left the cast of "Lost," but this is disappointing. Surely he could have done better.

It reminds me of a spoof death threat I got many years ago. It claimed that my life was being filmed by aliens from Alderbaran and that it was the fourth highest rated show on the network. Unfortunately the authors were the producers of "Blue Cheez", the fifth highest rated show on the network, and they were allowing me five minutes to set my affairs in order and scream before disintegrating me.

I'm almost certain the friend who wrote it hasn't turned to scam emails.

Wow. PublishAmerica is getting desperate ...

#18: if only they hadn't insisted Ikemba do his own publicity...

Serge @ 10: Everyone knows the French are trés dangereuse. Tabarnac!

Write back. Tell Mr. Okoye that you don't like apples, you already have a princess, and woodland creatures are frankly frightened of you.

Ginger @ 20... Sacrebleu! Some of us are quite nice. Oui, oui.

Now that's a social network I think could really catch on. You know, except for all the members dropping dead.

No problem. Just ask your beloved friend, the God-fearing and extremely trustworthy Miriam "Legs" Akimba, to pay him from your share of the ten million quatloos (Q10,000,000) you will be assisting her to transfer from her country.

I had a deathspam a few months ago. I /knew/ it was all bluster and wind, but that didn't stop me feeling upset and dirty. I reported it, of course, but what can ISPs/IT departments /do/? Pretty much nothing, it seems.

Don't let's forget amid the fun-poking that these vile threats are hurtful in and of themselves.

I've been meaning to get this off my chest for a while now, so here goes:

Bless me, deities of the Internet, for I have sinned. I have aided a 419 scammer.

I was in France last month, visiting family and generally having a blast. And, since wherever I was staying wasn't always convenient to whatever I was doing that day, I frequently dropped by a cybercafe to check the ol' email.

It was in a Lyon cybercafe that I encountered a man who spoke English but very little French--and who needed the sort of help that only a bilingual computer geek could provide. So I patiently walked him through the process of importing files from his thumb drive to Google Docs... which is when, from a glance at the document, I couldn't help but notice that he was almost certainly running a 419 scam.

I extricated myself from the vicinity very quickly, and still feel vaguely guilty that I didn't call him on his scammin' ways.

Anyone have an idea of what kind of penance I should perform?

What I find intriguing is that he doesn't offer to NOT kill you...just says you should contact him. Presumably to confim your address for his minions.

I just got one that started like this:

How are you and your family I hope fine? Do accept my sincere apologies if my mail does not meet your personal ethics.

"I have the money you ask for. Just have one of your boys who is tracking me come up and ask for it and use the password, and I'll pay him."

See how long you can make the correspondence continue before he gives up. (You'll also learn more of his email addresses to get canceled.)

Nicole #26: The appropriate penance is to return, and when you see him (or somebody else) sending 419s, call the police.

Just offer him the diamonds you got from the nephew of the Nigerian president, if he let's you live, all he has to do, is to send you his id papers.