By SYD BAUMEL (except for the message from "Mr. Tambo")

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "MR. TAMBO" <engr_anthony_zuma@lycos.com>
To: <baumel@mts.net>
Sent: Wednesday, April 30, 2003 12:00 AM
Subject: Urgent Assistance From South Africa.
 

|                   STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL & URGENT.
|
|
| TEL: 871 - 762535915
| FAX: 871 - 762535916
| TEL: 27 - 835948129
|
| Alternative:E-mail address: tambo79@latinmail.com
|
|
| Dear Sir,
|
| I am Mr.Tambo, a native of Cape Town in South Africa and I am an Executive
| Accountant with the South Africa Department of Mining & Natural Resources.
| First and foremost, I apologized using this medium to reach you for a
| transaction/business of this magnitude, but this is due to Confidentiality
| and prompt access reposed on this medium. Be informed that a member of the
| South Africa Export Promotion Council (SEPC) who was at the Government
| delegation to your country during a trade exhibition gave your enviable
| credentials/particulars to me. I have decided to seek a confidential
| co-operation with you in the execution of the deal described hereunder for
| the benefit of all parties and hope you will keep it as a top secret
| because of the nature of this transaction.
|
| Within the Department of Mining & Natural Resources where I work as an
| Executive Accountant and with the cooperation of four other top officials,
| we have in our possession as overdue payment bills totaling Twenty - Six
| Million, Five Hundred Thousand U. S. Dollars ($26,500,000.) which we
| want to transfer abroad with the assistance and cooperation of a foreign
| company/individual to receive the said fund on our behalf or a reliable
| foreign non-company account to receive such funds. More so, we are
| handicapped in the circumstances, as the South Africa Civil Service Code
| of Conduct does not allow us to operate offshore account hence your
| importance in the whole transaction.
|
| This amount $26.5m represents the balance of the total contract value
| executed on behalf of my Department by a foreign contracting firm, which
| we the officials over-invoiced deliberately. Though the actual contract
| cost have been paid to the original contractor, leaving the balance in the
| tune of the said amount which we have in principles gotten approval to
| remit by Telegraphic Transfer (T.T) to any foreign bank account you will
| provide by filing in an application through the Justice Ministry here in
| South Africa for the transfer of rights and privileges of the former
| contractor to you.
|
| I have the authority of my partners involved to propose that should you be
| willing to assist us in the transaction, your share of the sum will be 25%
| of the $26,.5 million, 70% for us and 5% for taxation and miscellaneous
| expenses. The business itself is 100% safe, on your part provided you
| treat it with utmost secrecy and confidentiality. Also your area of
| specialization is not a hindrance to the successful execution of this
| transaction. I have reposed my confidence in you and hope that you will
| not disappoint me. Endeavor to contact me immediately through my above
| Tel/Fax number or
| my e-mail address, whether or not you are interested in this deal. If you
| are not, it will enable me scout for another foreign partner to carry out
| this deal I want to assure you that my partners and myself are in a
| position to make the payment of this claim possible provided you can give
| us a very strong
| Assurance and guarantee that our share will be secured and please remember
| to treat this matter as very confidential matter, because we will not
| comprehend with any form of exposure as we are still in active Government
| Service and remember once again that time is of the essence in this
| business.
| I wait in anticipation of your fullest co-operation.
|
| Yours faithfully,
|
| Mr. Tambo
|

My Dearest Mr. Tambo,

I woke up this morning, my mind heavy with the burden of unpaid bills, the bawling of hungry babies, and that uniquely dull, persistent frontal headache of failed financial opportunites (are you familiar with that sensation, Mr. Tambo?). How fortuitous, then, your timely email to me on this (now forever) blessed night. 

------- But wait!

What is that sound I hear??? Could it be the basso foghorn of a certain ship - a ship
named . . . 

"YOUR SHIP MR. BAUMEL HAS FINALLY COME IN"

I think it is. And I think (oh yes I do!) that ship surely must bear the glorious name, "Mr.
Tambo"!!! Oh how giddy with delight am I tonight!

Mr. Tambo (are you by any chance related to a Mr. Opara, a Mr. Savimbi, or a
Chief Bola Harry?), I am moved, excited, exhilirated by your confidence in me
and my (as you so flatteringly put it) "enviable credentials/particulars." All the moreso in light of the fact that you do not appear to specifically know my name, though I can't but be impressed that you have gone to such trouble to obtain my email address - a sure sign of diligence, and I admire that in a business partner. Indeed, judging by the rest of your confidential email communique, you in point of fact appear to have no particular knowledge of me whatsoever! If you did, you would surely have gleaned that I have no credentials at all and that my particulars are very modest and quite unenviable.

How touching, then, that your bold leap of faith from the very jaws of your own
financial adversity has inspired you to place so much trust in someone of whom
you have only the good word of a nameless mutual associate, a certain member of the "South Africa Export Promotion Council," an organization of which, I must confess, I have never heard (but which obviously has heard of me! oh how exciting this is!!!).

(And how flattering and yet humbling it is to find oneself known and respected by others in far off lands to which one has never travelled! What a small, wonderful, trusting world we live in, Mr. Tambo! How delightful that you and your - God bless his kind soul - SEPC colleague - the architect of my imminent financial salvation and yours! - are together a part of the same abundant universe, a universe that overflows with random acts of kindness such as this!)

Mr. Tambo, I must confess now that a most sour and hatefully discordant note has suddenly sounded like a big, ripping fart in a hushed cathedral within the aching echo chamber of my, only just moments ago, exultant consciousness.

I fear you are not what you appear to be.

I am deeply disturbed to confess to so vile a thought, mortified that your honour might be besmirched by this virus of distrust - and this at the very moment you have come to me naked and in need, your open, trusting palm outstretched before me with a veritable love offering, hands across the water, of some six million, six hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars!

Oh the devils of distrust!

Oh the savage scourge of skepticism!

Oh the bitter curse of common sense!

Oh the distraught despair of not being a complete and utterly brainless fool!!!

Mr. Tambo ------------

I am a grade four student in Ms. Kraposki's class at Laurier Elementary School. My mommy just came into the room and says that if I don't turn off the computer and go to bed THIS MINUTE she won't let me use it again for a whole week! 

And so I must say good night, Mr. Tambo.

Your trusted friend,
Mr. Baumel