Most of us recognise the Nigerian email scam and delete the
messages. A few poor souls get sucked in and lose their savings.
But Rich Siegel spotted the fraud, entered into an exchange for his
own entertainment, and published the emails for ours.
His book, Tuesdays with Mantu: My Adventures with a Nigerian
Con Artist, lets you follow his adventures as he takes the
scammers on at their own game.
Siegel has been an advertising copywriter/creative director for
more than 20 years. Mantu Ibrahim was simply a con artist who
piqued his curiosity. Siegel assumed the fictional identity of Rich
Gosinya, and replied to Mantu's offer of a share of the loot –
expressed in that familiar syntax: USD $45m (FORTY FIVE MILLION,
FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLAR).
Much as the fraudsters embellish their emails with tales of dead
relatives, government corruption and VAST FORTUNES, Siegel revels
in his characters. He tells Mantu of his own late Uncle Fred; of
the great flange drought of 1979; of his job at the Tool & Dye
Factory; of his daughters, Rhianon, Jewel, Tiffany and Cher. He
asks Mantu for a small advance; he encourages Mantu to donate to
Pastor Ralph Malph's collection for victims of the Iranian
earthquake. And still Mantu fails to see that he is wasting his
time. The correspondence only ends when Siegel fakes his own
decapitation.
Fraudsters' emails keep coming, so Siegel engages again and
again, each time inventing a more ludicrous character. The
gullibility of the conmen is limitless. Boris Beecha Kockoff
describes an America where the roads are paved with gold and the
supermarkets are filled with avocados. Holden McGroyne laments his
widgets and left-handed egg scramblers, his flim-flams and
snipe-catchers.
Siegel is not the first to have fun with the scammers – there
are websites that document similar exchanges. But Siegel does it
better than most, and I'd much rather read a book than an
ebook.
I've tried to engage with the con artists myself, but much less
successfully than Siegel. Around two years ago, I tried to get an
interview with a scammer for OUT-LAW. I replied to every Nigerian
email that I received over a period of weeks, asking if the scammer
would discuss his success rate, what got him into this work etc. I
offered anonymity; but very few scammers replied. Those who did
would ask: "Tell me what this involves; and are you still
interested in the transaction?" I gave up.
Siegel does not delve beneath the surface. His book is played
straight for laughs. Sometimes it feels like cheap shots from the
bigger, smarter kid; but Siegel justifies his efforts in his
introduction. "I figured everyday I was eating up Mr Ibrahim's
time, was a day he was not scamming some old geezer out of his
retirement fund," he writes. He acknowledges that he is the one
with the education and the better command of English; but he warns
against feeling sorry for the crook. "He is a predator," he
reasons. "And undeserving of any sympathy."
Tuesdays with Mantu is an easy read, and Siegel's
imagination is entertaining throughout. You'll laugh, then feel bad
about laughing, then laugh some more.
Price: $10.87 from Amazon.com or £14.00 from Amazon.co.uk
Review by Struan Robertson
