We all know about the Nigerian style scam letters, also known as the 419.
I have done my own spoof versions of these in the past. For my next one I needed to check up the spelling of Tokolotch, which I had a suspicion was false. (After some trial and error I did manage to find the correct spelling.)
That is when to my surprise I found out that my spoof with the incorrect spelling
has turned up all over the place. What really made me gag on my beer was the fact that some people actually took it to be a serious 419. Laugh? I nearly shat, especially since this bunch have it up on their website. I thought for a milli-second to tell them, but hell, if they want to play policemen, who am I to pull their caps over their eyes.
The one below I have created is based on a true story that has hit the news networks these past few days. I have supplied all the necessary links. The enormity of this crime boggles the mind. Whilst the general story is complete fabrication, all names and all addresses, phone numbers, Email etc are real. The amount involved is real. So is the gold and diamonds.
I am Zimbabwean Nyasha del Campo and I live in abject poverty in Madrid. My poor husband Pedro, who people say he looks a little like Carlos the Jackal, is at the moment in Africa starving to death due to Western Economic sanctions and I am desperate to get him home.
Last year, my mother, a poor woman who lives on a small 5000 hectare farm that the kind government of Zimbabwe took from a White racialist farmer and gave to her, was visited after seven bottles of Moët et Chandon by her spiritual ancestor Tosotsi Tokoloshe.
He had alarming, even frightful news that terrorized my mother almost to death, but it has a happy ending beneficial to us both. The Tosotsi Tokoloshereminded my mother of the legend of Jack Chifumbe who had killed the giant Sky High Lee and took his magic huku (chicken) that could lay gold eggs a dozen at a time.
Sadly, the racist Selous Scouts of Ian Smith murdered Jack for being a potential freedom fighter, even though he was only eleven at the time and stole the magic chicken. It is believed it was sold toBilly Rautenbach who then smuggled it to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and hid it in a cave but forgot where.
The Tosotsi Tokoloshe revealed to my mother the exact location of the cave.
She sold all her donkeys, and even had to rent out the swimming pool as a communal tip to finance my trip to the Congo from Spain, where I live as a poor refugee with my husband, to find the magic chicken because she was too ill with obesity to fit in a plane seat. It was a terrible journey for me and I was often raped by United Nation peacekeepers. But it is a wonderful place, full of happy smiling people, always enthusiastically waving their amputated hands and wooden legs in greeting.
I found the cave and inside it was like Aladdin. The chicken had not stopped laying golden eggs, almost to the roof! I told my husband Pedro, to get a wheelbarrow and bring some to Nairobi in Kenya and I will find a kind person to buy some of it.
Pedro has worked hard (bless his Conquistador soul) and has managed to bring 3.7 tonnes (three point seven tonnes) of golden eggs to Nairobi. He also had time to bring a box of diamonds. The magic chicken is still laying gold nuggets, so I can arrange this amount every 30 days except in February. It is a very productive chicken. Once a week on a Friday every month, it lays diamonds after I threatened to wring its neck and have it with sadza and relish.
We have spent much time and effort using software to print all the necessary legal documents from anywhere you like for transporting this small amount to Switzerland. However we are short of the cash needed to fly it out as the freighting firm says it is heavy and cost US200.000.
I trust you even if you are a Whiteman because you are german and understand how to treat dissedents, to keep this transaction diskreet. All future correspondence must never be allowed to be posted on the net as my mother will be cross and beat me stupid and Pedro clever.
We have set up some firms so the paper chase is burnt.
I have given you a link of pictures of the 97 % proof gold nuggets layed by the magic chicken. The other 3% is commission for the chicken. It does not shit millions for free! I also have photo of one diamond and a list of all the others.
I hope that we will remain good patners and help me shifty this bloody gold as fast as you can say Heil Hitler.
Your best friend
Nyasha del Campo
Piss Script – you blab your mouth, my mother phone you, she has big Juju and send friends in sunglasses with knobkerries to beat your feet.
****
I have found the original legend of Jack and the Mielie Stalk – here it is
With Bob reaching the end of his latest contract, he is casting his eyes around for another country to trash. His clever wife Grace, who has two GCE O’levels in felatio and Chilapalapa, was instructed to send out enquiries to large executive recruitment firms. As she was too busy beating up reporters, she had the assistant Minister of Disinformation, Brightspark Matonga, to do it for her.
Brightspark you may remember, was back in the news for getting rid of his wife, the foul mouthed, farm robbing EssexslapperAnne Pout.
With the successful conclusion of my present contract, I find myself still willing to continue my chosen career of destroying nations. Whilst it is acknowledged that Gordon Brown has done a relatively good job of bringing the U.K. to its knees, I believe it could be done faster and with much more panache.
Executive power means executable power. I would simply execute any opponents against my policies of increased money supply, increased collapse of the entire infrastructure, along with fast-track closure of schools and hospitals to finance my scheme of creating jobs in the civil service. All 40 million of them.
The House of Commons and the Lords will be moved to Guantanamo bay, which I have recently purchased from a brother.
All troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan and Iraq where they are just wasting tax-payers money. Instead they will be re-deployed to the Congo and participate in rape and pillage. Cobalt and diamonds spring to mind and feeding such a large force is logistically rather simple as the jungle is still full of pygmies that fit into most cooking pots.
The Queen must be moved out of BuckinghamPalace to make way for my wife, but as a sign of respect for giving me a knighthood, I will allow her to occupy a small mud hut at the bottom of the garden. I might even provide a Blair toilet, but she may not keep any chickens.
My salary is non-negotiable as I will simply help my-self to the Reserve Bank. (Keep it full Gordon for when I take over.) I do insist on the usual perks that are attached to my position. These include a bullet-proof Mercedes and a Jumbo jet bigger than the one my brother in America has. If the wife gets a dog she might insist on a blood diamond collar. If she gets a new lover instead, I will insist on starting the old practise of chopping people’s heads off in public. Mugabe Stadium (formally Wembley) would be good place.
I have not bothered to attach my C.V. as it is readily available on the net. Simply Google my name and it comes up with 2,680,000 results, so take your pick. Most of it is simply lies placed by left-wing gays, who, incidentally, will all be rounded up and fed to the Loch Ness monster.
I intend to return all corner shops to ethnic majorities whom I will import from China.
As British farms are just subsidized cash cows, they will be taken over by hoodies and knife carrying gang members who will produce beer and marijuana.
In conclusion, I have a small personal wish. At my inauguration I would like Bob Marley to sing, so could you start fast-track cloning him? I don’t want him wailing and shitting in nappies during my acceptance speech.
Cruel regards,
Bob.
P.S. I want the Queens head on the bank notes changed. I am a humble and modest man so I am happy to have depicted the executed head of Morgan Tsvangirai on an assegai, just for old times sake.
In Friday’s Zimbabwean govern-mental mouthpiece The Herald(which charges US$ for advertising), was a story relating to counterfeit United States dollars. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry because it appears the circus really has come to town and everyone is printing their own tickets.
In what appears straight out of an episode of the Keystone Cops, the police along, with the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Gideon Gono, busted a ‘den’ of counterfeiters. This just happened to be a shop with a copier and arrested the owner after the detention and interrogation of a ‘dealer’, supplied the 'tip-off'.
Whilst the episode is funny, there is a serious problem. The culprits, and there are many, are hoodwinking as many people as possible. Tragically, they also use the fake money on the rural population and con them into parting with their ever dwindling live stock.
Meanwhile, I took the story and converted it into a monologue of fictional ventriloquism. Below is the shop keeper speaking in his own defence at a court appearance.
I hope I have managed to convey the accent accurately.
Aah, you Honour. It is not me that should be standing in this box, but that one sitting over there smiling like a baboon who has just stolen a bag of mielies. That man, Ja, him, the big Chef of the bank, Comrade Gono. He is coming into my shop with the police, making me very frightened. How am I suppose to know who he is? If you yourself had a shop in England selling vegtables and the Queen came in, you yourself would just believe it was just another old white umfasi.
They are accusing me. Me - I am a honest man. They say I am making my own usas on my photo copier. In the middle of my shop! Aah, I am laughing now. You believe that the people believe in one million usas note? I am crying now from laughing so much. There is plenty of them. You yourself can get them for nothing from the internet. My favourite is the eight usas note with Obama on it. They are very popular. But that one with him one thousand usas is no good because it use-ah too much colour to make him brown when we all know that he is black and white.
No. I am telling you all that money was just for a game. You know this game Zimopoly. That one where you steal farms and get for-ecks from the Unreserved Bank Casino. This is the money for this game. When people want to pay me two hundred real usas for twenty thousand of my usas, that is not a crime. They are happy with the service and they go home and play Zimopoly.
Aah, you Honour. You know that son of yours from your third wife. That tostsi called Brightspark? Aah, you know him, he is one of my favourite customers and buy many of my usas. He told me one day, when he was very drunk and crashed his new Mercedes into the Chicken Inn next door, Aah, I tell you, I was laughing so hard, I forgot to whip the picanin stealing paper from my shop, that you like to play the game also?
Aah, I am tired now. I have work to do. I tell you this much. That baboon Gono, he print his money all the time, but he is just jealous of me because my money is better than his. He is a RACIALIST! I tell you, he is a Shona and I am a Tonga. He thinks I am stupid but I tell you, he is the stupid one here.
You say that some people are using my usas to pay for things. The shops are the thieves. They charge, charge all the time, so some of my customers use my usas. Where is the crime? Why we pay 5 usas for eggs one day and 7 the next? They are all tostis you honour.
Ah, I see my lawyer is instructing me to rest my case because it is very heavy with plenty usas for you Honour.
***
Glossary:
Chef: A term used for just about the entire hierarchy of the ruling party ZANU (PF) and its cronies.
Meilies: A cob of corn.
Picanin or Picaninny: Whilst it is considered an offensive word for Black children in the West, I personally believe that in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe it was/is a term of endearment to refer to both White and Black children. There is an interesting link here
A very good friend of mine, Jill, recently returned from Harare, Zimbabwe where she had spent six weeks looking after her mother who has suffered a stroke. Not quite the best place to fall ill. It was interesting to hear some of her stories. Unless you are seriously loaded with Forex, there is literally nothing to do. Those good old days of going down to the Postal’s Club at LakeMcIIwaine (now LakeChivero), having great braais and burning petrol by zoom-zoom zooming up and down the lake in high powered speed boats are all long gone days. She says the lake is just one giant cess pit. Then there is the problem with electricity. No power means no TV, DVD, PC and Game consuls. Guess what? She thought it was great. Card and board games along with conversation replaced technology.
Other observations: For all the hardship, waking up in the morning, the sun shining, the garden vibrating with life, was tonic for her soul after London’s hustle and bustle and media doom and gloom shoved down everyone’s gullets. You see, most people there don’t know what is really going on in Zimbabwe. That the situation is bad is obvious, but the majority, not having access to the internet or satellite TV are blissfully unaware that they live in a failed state. They are too busy making ends meet and that brings me to her final and most important observation, for the omens are very bad.
What Mugabe and Co has done is create a population of wheelers and dealers. Business, as we know it, hardly exists. The Zimbabwean currencies insane inflation created a world of unreality as far as the worth, in currency, of goods. As we all know eventually it had to implode. It has, very little is now in Zim dollars. With the semi-authorization of Forex, goods have returned to the shops, but here is the catch. The hyper inflation mentality has crossed over as well. Now Zimbabweans are stealing en-mass from each other. When Jill arrived a tray of 30 eggs cost US$5, when she left, they wanted US$7. She protested vehemently. This wasn’t hyper inflation, this was exploitation and theft. Can you imagine what would happen in the UK or anywhere in the West. ‘There will be blood!’
Coincidently, I came across this letter which was placed on the Zimbabwe Situation website yesterday and it confirms exactly what my friend said. I have reproduced it in its entirety because it is worth reading. It does not bode well for the people of Zimbabwe.
PEOPLE, PEOPLE of Zimbabwe (letter)
Bulawayo Morning Mirror 320
http://www.morningmirror.africanherd.com
PEOPLE, PEOPLE of Zimbabwe, what are we doing to ourselves? We have gone from the cheapest place in the World to live, to now easily the most expensive place in the World to live, and we have only ourselves to blame. We seem to think that because we have all held out so long here in Zimbabwe, against all odds, that now Zimbabwe and everyone who is left owes us a favour.
The whole country except maybe some poor unfortunate workers who are getting ripped off by their employers, is now operating in foreign currency in one form or another. Since we are now dealing in foreign currency we need to throw away our mindset that we pick up our calculators and start hitting the 0's to calculate what we are now going to pass onto the next person.
In the rest of the world, investors are lucky to get 10% a year on their money, possibly a good business that can rotate its product every month, might achieve close to 100%.
Here everyone who hears that someone , knows someone, that might need something,
adds their 30 or 40% to the commodity before it gets to the person who is finally stupid enough to buy it, and this disease is spreading.
We are even beginning to hurt ourselves across the borders, because some businesses
there are realizing just how stupid us Zimbabweans are at parting with our money, and are increasing their prices there as well. By the time it hits our streets its more than 3 times the value of what it actually costs in SA.. You will also notice, the smallest denomination we use is R10 or USD1, there is a lot of change in between if you put a value to it, in SA , you could get 2 loaves of bread for R10. Silver doesn't exist.
Most people in the country who are trading in one form or another are literally doubling their foreign currency every week or turnaround, that puts their profits into the 1000% in less than a year, its not a wonder that people and businesses outside the country are looking at sending money and commodities on credit to their friends and families still here to sell. They can invest their money much better that way.
I know that I am painting everyone with the same brush here, there are exceptions, but
they are few are far between, and to them I apologize, but we need to all pull together to stop this rot. Its time that Import Parity and competition stepped in, be realistic, it is real money we are now dealing with no longer the useless paper that we have had in the past. The value does not change overnight like it used to, as with our Zim dollar which could triple overnight, it is the same real money that our friends and neighbours have been using next door for years, and it hardly moves.
Another thing while I am about it, guys stop being so quick to flick between US and Rand. When you are charging for labour you are inclined to charge in US, because it gives the impression that it is 10 times less than Rand. I personally had a 7 minute mechanical job done for me the other day, and it cost USD 50, hey that is R500. This is more than a Brain Surgeon charges for a 15 minute consultation, and the job was done by a spanner boy. Yes, I'm guilty I was part of the rot, but the job had been done, and I was stupid enough not to get a quote before hand, so I paid.
What about bribing to get things done, I know its a schlep, and we all do it, but lets all try not to wherever possible. You may be interested to know that it works, I took a personal stand the other day, when I was caught talking on a cell phone whilst driving. I had to go to court, because I refused to pay a bribe.
2 weeks later I appeared in court, where once again I was given the option by the Court Officials and the Policemen to pay R300 and my problem would disappear, I can tell you that by then because of the time wasting, I was ready to, but I did not. After about 3 hrs, I stood before the magistrate and was given a Z$ 20 fine ( worth about R,0001 ) at the time, or an option to do 10 days in Jail. I naturally opted for the fine, but felt like asking if the food was free for the 10 days because it might have been an option! Someone in the Fines office did benefit because the smallest note that was in circulation at the time was about $1000, and I did not wait for my change.
Guys it can be done, Its not the Government or the Fat Cats we can blame here anymore, it’s ourselves, we are making our own Fat Cats, lets all try to stop this rot, if someone is ripping it, tell them, and if its you, stop it, even if we have to embarrass each other in public, lets do so, so that we can get back to some sort of normality and at least get value for our hard earned foreign currency.
The most adaptable people in the world us Zimbabweans have managed to survive against all sorts of odds, to get to this stage, and everyone out there is cheering us on and ready to support us, as has been evident with the fantastic support of our old folk, in these dying moments, lets not lose sight of the bigger picture, by stabbing ourselves in the back.
