<nettime> spanish prisoner in nigeria

[Jamie King <jamie@jamie.com>]

geert lovink wrote:
> 
> business proposals from Nigeria... Does anyone have
> more information about this phenomena? 

from an old Mutella...
http://www.metamute.com/eletter/archive03.htm

The Spanish Prisoner [Goes Digital]

The Spanish Prisoner: an con trick dating back to the earliest days of 
colonialism. An honest man in another country sends a letter to the mark 
spinning the tale of a poor innocent in incarceration back home in Spain 
- the Spanish Prisoner. The prisoner needs to get his money, which is in 
danger of being appropriated by his corrupt enemies, out of the 
country... but he needs the help of an good, upstanding individual to do 
it. The mark's name has been brought to his attention by one of his 
colleagues abroad as a man fit for the job. If the mark can reach the 
Prisoner, the Prisoner will give him the key and location of his family 
fortune and trust him to spirit it out of the country and invest it 
wisely until he regains his freedom. In many variations the mark is also 
asked to look after the Prisoner's sister to the best of his ability - a 
young maiden who, since the Prisoner's capture, has no-one in the world 
to care for her. This piece of flim-flam, which seems to play well to 
the greed and lasciviousness of your average gentleman, has in various 
forms worked wonders for many a conman . If the mark is stupid enough to 
respond, a world of wallet-lightening pain awaits him to get to the 
Prisoner and his putative booty. Of course the money, if it is ever 
seen, evaporates long before anyone can get it out of the country. And 
as for the maiden... Unfortunately, the elegant little turns that made 
the original work so well in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries - 
the mention of a travelling friend whose word the mark would trust, but 
who could not be contacted, the libido-tweaking picture of the lonesome 
maiden waiting for 'help'- are all too often ommitted in the slipshod 
world of the twentieth first century shuckster [see geert's post].

JJ

--------------------

jamie king



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