Hit Man Scam Re-enters Canada

Durham Regional Police cautioned that the 'hit man' mail scam is being observed in some of the areas in Canada, including Great Toronto Area and Edmonton.

The scam mail reads that "someone you call a friend wants you dead." In simple words, the mail informs them that someone of the recipient's acquaintance has hired a hit man to kill him. Then, the mail asks for $5,000 reportedly for the protection of the recipient.

The investigators are of the opinion that these mails are coming from some other country, maybe from Nigeria, where several mail scams are designed. The mails contain several grammatical and spelling mistakes, making it clear that English is a second language to the creator.

Recommending people to be wary of these scams, Howard Kunce, Edmonton city police Sgt., stated that some residents of Edmonton and Alberta might fall for the scam. He said that they are trying to make people aware of this and urged people that if they get anything like this, they should not reply to it, as per the news published by cnews on May 7, 2010.

Of late, Edmonton police have got just a local complaint about the scam. Therefore, Kunce added that it is a bit odd to inform the public when they have just got one complaint, but this specific mail is a little annoying. They are just wishing that by making Edmontonians aware they can bring down the attack level to minimal.

Interestingly, this kind of scam is nothing new. This scam has been circulating since 2006 in varied forms. Earlier, the scam e-mails demanded extortion money of amount $80,000 with a down payment of $20,000 from the victims.

During 2007, in one of the mail scams the sender claimed that he had been hired to kill the recipient by his own colleague. Also, the mail stated that for protecting the recipient's life, he seeks the recipient's cooperation. He was advised to contact the sender once he got the message.

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» SPAMfighter News - 5/20/2010