New E-Mail Scam

I don't usually blog about such things as e-mail scams. By now, everyone should be familiar with the e-mail scam where someone from another country is trying to take advantage of a recent windfall of cash by asking someone to help transfer the money. You will of course have to put up some of your own money to help this person get his money and, thereby, get a bonus for yourself. But now someone is using the same idea but is using the context of a U.S. service member in Iraq (or elsewhere) getting a hidden cache of money out of Iraq. Here is the message I received today:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am Captain Simon Smith of the US Marine Corps on Monitoring and Peace –keeping mission in Baghdad-Iraq. On the 27th day of August 2007, we were alerted on the sudden presence of some Terrorists camping in a suburb not too far from Karbala here in Iraq. After Immediate intervention, we captured three (3) of the Terrorists, twenty-six (26) were killed leaving seven (7) injured.

In the process of Investigation they confessed being rebels for late Ayman al-Zawahiri and took us to a cave in Karbala which served as their camp. Here we recovered several guns, bombs and other Ammunitions including a box contains some American US Dollars amounting $10.4M after counted it. Please
I want you to keep this in high secrecy. I am in keen need of a “Reliable and Trustworthy” person like you who would receive, secure and protect this box containing the American US Dollars for me on till my assignment elapses here in Iraq. Please contact me on this email only: Please assure me of your keeping this topmost secret to protect my job with the US Monitoring and Peace-Keeping mission.

Best regards,

Capt. Simon Smith.

The whole idea of this message is preposterous. The only time you see something like this is in the movies (i.e., Three Kings). So be on your guard. Be smarter than celery.