Who Is This Man?

Most of us know who this ma'am is.  But what follows wanders a tad into Whiskey Tango Foxtwot territory.

It all begins when another of my characters gets an email from a Dr. Gideon Masie (who's been made fun of prior in this blog), that winds up taking an unforeseen turn.  Meanwhile, here's how it all started:

ON THE DESK TOP OF                                                                  GIDEON MASIE
                                                                BARCLAYS BANK OF ENGLAND

Hello sir,
In reference to your funds which was forwarded to us here ( BARCLAYS BANK OF ENGLAND) FOR FURTHER VERIFICATION AND AUTHENTICATION .
We want to come to your notice that after due verification, we found out that your fund transfer was done through non existing banking process based on open tender policy.
As a matter of fact, the transfer which was attempted several times with different beneficiaries was believed to be a floating fund without a good clam of ownership.

On this regard, I, Mr.Gideon Masie is now your new bank officer.
I will work well with you but I love transparency in every thing I do. You will have your money but due to the errors committed in the past, some areas need to be clarified for the security of the fund, As soon as 100% guarantee is achieved,this is to know is the fund in question is a payment for drug transaction ,money laundry or things related to that.once this is done, I have no any other option than to forward your money to any accounted provided
We are sorry if this in one way or the other will affect you but there is nothing we can do than what is necessary  for security reasons.

DONT BE AFRAID TO RELATE TO ME OF WHERE YOU ARE HAVING PROBLEM
YOU MAY CONTACT ME ON MY PRIVATE EMAIL
gideonmasie@yahoo.com

GIDEON MASIE BARCLAYS BANK OF ENGLAND  


After some preliminary back 'n forth, my character was introduced to a second person in Dr. Gideon's repertoire, a Michael Udenze, allegedly a lawyer who would further along Dr. Gideon's scam:

Hello JE,

This is from Barrister Michael Udenze writing in regards to your arrangement with Dr. Gideon.

Doctor told me that you have being on a sick bed. I am sorry. I pray that you will recover soonest.

As he must have told you, I don't come out open working for our customers to avoid implications but because of your health  will need an authorized latter of assignment from you with three copies of your passport photograph. (the passport can be copied from any of your pictures)

Account info and details where you will want the money to be transferred to and a scan ID

Please do split the 3000pds  in to three while sending through western union or any other money transfer to

RECEIVER'S NAME ANDREW JONES

CITY. LONDON

Waiting for you.

Michael U  

 

 

For unexplained reasons, Dr. Gideon told the bannister that my character was sick, and this caused a little bit of a 'tiff' betwixt us for a short time.  But my character got over it in the interests of keeping this going a tad.

 

When out of no where, a new player comes in via email within the same thread:

 

 

My name is Mr. Andriy Kuzma from Ukraine.
I am getting in touch with you regarding an extremely important and urgent matter. If you would oblige me the opportunity, I shall provide you with details upon your response.  

 

 

LOL...over the years I've had scammers lose track of their scams and the characters they're supposed to be playing, so I assumed that this was another case of such.  At any rate, I decided to float it by Dr. Gideon to explain WTF this was all about:

 

 

What does Andriy Kuzma have to do with you?  

 

 

Dr. Gideon responds:

 

 

I have not heard about that name before  

 

 

Curious...an email from him came up in this thread.  That suggested to me that you had another partner in this.   Unless he is an associate of Michael Udenze?  If so, it is a digressing proposal, not the one you began with me.  Are you sure that Udenze isn't double dealing you?  

 

 

We don't know him Sir.   

 

 

And I get this from Udenze, which starts with an email from Dr. Gideon to Udenze, wanting to know about this Kuzma charaacter:

 

 

I received this message from Mr.Jack. Who is this man from Ukraine?

> My name is Mr. Andriy Kuzma from Ukraine.

 

 

It is followed by Udenze's email to my character:

 

 

Hello JE,

I just received below message from Dr.Gideon. Honestly speaking, am not happy with this.The only business I have with you is to help you obtain some vital documents and submit them to Dr. Gideon. I have no connection with any person in Ukraine and have never been to Ukraine all the days of my life. I have no reason at all to tamper with your transaction.

The receivers name I gave you is due to security reasons.Andrew Jones is my In-law. I have not even told him about anything.

Please, I have no hand in this.  

 

 

Meantime, my character is inquiring of Mr. Kuzma about the other two:

 

 

Upon accepting to transact with us, we require your utmost trust and total dedication, since you will be in charge of the aforementioned funds. I'm seeking your partnership in transferring funds to a local bank in your country. This is a deal of over (€25m) which was abandoned in my bank by a late customer.
I'm hoping you are comfortable with the sharing ratio, 50% to each side is a fair deal. This transaction is 100% reliable and secured. With my position as the Head of Operations of Kreditukr Investment Bank, handling this transaction is within my power only with your full support. The funds will be released to you in 10-15 business days after all necessary measures has been met. I require the below information to commence this process:

1. FULL NAME
2. DATE OF BIRTH
3. OCCUPATION
4. CONTACT ADDRESS
5. PHONE NUMBER
6. SCANNED VALID ID, DRIVER'S LICENSE or PASSPORT

Once the above information gets to us, an  application letter will be sent to Central Bank of Ukraine on your behalf by our accredited Consultant. (I will copy you his contact on the receipt of the above mentioned details) I will also send you my international passport and all related as proof to make you more comfortable that this is all legit and risk-free, most importantly, I will like you to assure me that you will not betray this trust and confidence that am about to repose on you.

After the transaction, I'll like to meet with you and your family as soon as we get the funds transferred into your nominated bank account for disbursement and investment purposes.
Hope to read from you soon.


Kind Regards,
Andriy Yakiv Kuzma.
Head Manager, Kredit Ukrainian Investment Bank, Ukraine.
KreditUkr | PRIVACY POLICY
© 2017 KreditUkr P.O Box 1000 Donetsk, 03680. Ukraine.  

 

 

Are you working with Gideon Masie?  

 

 

I have no idea who Gordon is, did you get the details of my email to you?  

 

 

Yes, I got the details...but I want to know why your emails are meshing with those of a Gideon Masie and Michael Udenze.  That suggests you're working with them.  

 

 

With my vast experience in banking, I must warn you to avoid and seize communicating with anyone trying to use my information to extort people.  Actually I was hacked recently, I guess that is how my account got compromised, kindly do away with such people and block them if possible and maybe have an IT personnel to come check for computer for any possible hack activity.

Meanwhile, in receipt of your response with the required details, I shall proceed with the registration of your details into the bank system database as the beneficiary to the account.
I look forward to hearing from you shortly.  

 

 

I love it when scammers tell me to block other scammers.  At any rate, we go on:

 

 

If your account was hacked:

1.  was it the Russians that did it?
2. How can I know that I'm talking to you, and not the hacker? 

Kindly forward me the emails you received from Gordon Masie and Michael Udenze.
Now back to your questions.

1. No way I could have known who hacked my account,
2. I have had it checked out by computer specialist.

My computer is completely safe now.
I hope to see the emails sent to you by those two.  


So my character sends Kuzma the emails from Dr. G and Udenze, whilst telling them this:


It's an interesting situation.  You and Udenze insist that you do not know him; he insists that the both of you are frauds.  Most interesting situation.  However, since Russian hacking has been highlighted in the news so recently -- and Ukraine was a part of Russia -- I do suspect that Kuzma might be part of a hacking network.  


Thus responds Dr. Gideon:


As I say we do not know him and you must belief that he is a fraud not us.  Please do not mix our business with him further please.  


Long as things are suitably convoluted here, I decide to further toss a few monkey tools into the pumps, by having yet another character weigh in with all three individual email addresses thus:


Who Is This Man:

 I have heard from all three of you who appear to be working at cross porpoises, which I took to be very pissed off mammals of the aquatic variety.  So...who is this man and what do the three of you have in common with him?  And how does it all connect to me?  Expedience in response, please.  


First my second character gets this from Dr. Gideon:


Who are you?  I not write to you?  Are you Mr. Kuzma?  


And this from Bannister Udenze:


I am not known to you.  What is going on?  


And finally, Kuzma weighs in:


I have no time for jokes with you people.  Stop contacting me.  


Which gets this response from Dr. Gideon who for whatever reasons also copied Udenze and my character:


I did not contact you.  You stop contacting!  


Since he copied all of us (other than my original character, I let the second character reply):


Okay, kiddies...unless you all want to be sent to different corners for time outs, you will play nice.  Simply answer my question of who is this man?


That resulted in chirping crickets so far as my second character went.  So now back to the first character, who decides to either draw them out further, or end the silly thread thus:


Okay.  It appears clear to me that Dr. Gideon and Bannister Udenze claim to not know Andriy Kuzma; and that Kuzma does not know Masie and Udenze.  YET...somehow, the three of you wound up on the same email thread that began with Dr. Gideon. 

Kuzma claims that his email was recently hacked.  I suspect that perhaps this same hacker may have conjoined my emails with Dr. Gideon and Udenze as well, though I am at a loss to explain how.

And this morning, I get an email from yet another person who identifies himself as Ukulele Ungabunga, and shows up as a fourth character in this email thread, sending me a picture of some German looking officer and demanding to know who is this man?

What is becoming very clear to me is that someone amongst you has lost total control of your email security.  And with that loss of control, I can have no confidence in dealing with such a situation.

I leave it to the four of you -- Dr. Gideon, Udenze, Kuzma and Ungabunga -- to sort out what the f**k is going on, and get back to me with a logical and rational way forward in this deal, if after all this, there is one.  

I don't know if any of the first three are still talking to one another out there, but none are speaking to either of my characters at this point.

Nyuk.