The Extortionist Internet Scammers Ploy

My previous post with the return visit of ye olde internet scammer (otherwise known as homo sapiens scammeritis annoyingus) reminded me of a story that came out in the news last month. It seems the traditional Nigerian scammer had stepped up their game, at least on face value. Actually it's more along the lines of instead of fishing for suckers, this gang of internet scammers went to another level with extortion attempts. Businesses and organizations across North America received several versions of the same general ransom demand email mixed together with a bomb threat in mid-December. Police investigated, but found no trace of explosives. It's thought that the people responsible might be behind a sextortion scam last fall. What follows was one of those emails.

Good day. My mercenary has carried the bomb (lead azide) into the building where your business is conducted. My mercenary built the explosive device under my direction. It can be hidden anywhere because of its small size, it is impossible to destroy the supporting building structure by this explosive device, but if it denotates there will be many wounded people.

My recruited person is watching the situation around the building. If he notices any suspicious activity, panic or cops the device will be blown up.

I can call off my man if you make a transfer 20,000 usd is the price for your safety and business. Transfer it to me in Bitcoin and I assure that I have to withdraw my mercenary and the bomb will not detonate. But do not try to deceive me – my guarantee will become valid only after 3 confirmations in blockchain.

It is my Bitcoin address: [redacted]

You have to solve problems with the transaction by the end of the working day, if the working day is over and people start leaving the building the bomb will explode.

Nothing personal this is just a business, if I do not see the bitcoin and a bomb explodes, next time other companies will send me more bitcoins, because it isn’t a one-time action.

I will no longer log into this email, I monitor my wallet every twenty minutes and if I receive the money I will give the command to my man to get away.

If the bomb explodes and the authorities see this email We are not a terrorist society and don’t take responsibility for explosions in other places.

And so like your standard internet scammer, our extortionist shows some of the tell tales. English clearly isn't his first language (you think?). After all, denotate is not the word you were going for, champ, it was detonate. Unless you're suggesting that your explosive device is a past participle. There's the phrasing that doesn't read like it's being written by someone with a command of English, and the issues with punctuation. Honestly, who uses the term mercenary and 'recruited person'? And 'terrorist society'? Someone who's using Google translate, that's who. And yet unlike the usual internet scammer, this sort isn't dangling the promise of big bucks out there for a sucker to bite at. No, this one's making a threat about setting off explosives unless you go through with his extortion demands. Could it be frustration over people not buying the scam emails?

Actually not likely.  Some of the news stories I've seen on the matter since have suggested that the scheme originated in Russia, to which I would say, wow, no kidding. Russia is a sort of wild west of criminal activity these days, overseen by the Godfather of St. Petersburg, Tsar Vladimir himself, who's spent years systematically looting his own country and making himself obscenely rich (not bad for a retired KGB operator, huh?) through all sorts of ill gotten means. When he's not doing silly photo ops to try to overcompensate for his shortness of stature.

It makes you miss the not really so bad old days when we had our little Cold War going on. At least the Soviets were dependable. Even if it was mutually assured destruction and the threat of all out nuclear war, you knew that nobody was going to be foolish enough to actually launch anything at the other side. Not so much these days, as recklessness seems to rule the day and their side has the sorry excuse for a chief executive in the Oval Office by the fine hairs, so to speak. And Russkie hackers are out there interfering in elections, social media, financial markets, and now in their spare time might be sending bomb threats (for non existent bombs) to every Tom, Dick, and Harry out there. Or Kate, Vickie, and Mary out there. 

Boris? Can I call you Boris? No? Well, I'll call you that anyway. I'm sure Tsar Vladimir (Vlad to his friends, but oh, wait, he doesn't have any friends, because Putin doesn't trust anyone) might have told you and your comrades that this was going to work. Instead, not a bitcoin was sent. All you did was disrupt businesses and organizations with badly written email bomb threats that were as empty as the space inside your head.

This much I'll say- compared to this kind of incompetent buffoonery, the regular internet scammers like The Blessed Reverend Mary Goodlife Nbatu are a blessing. Not that I'm suggesting she start sending more emails with promises of fake riches. No, I'm just saying that given a choice between putting up with her and putting up with you, I'd put up with her. 

You? I'd suggest you add some lead azide to your vodka, down it, and see what happens.