Subject: VERY VERY URGENT AND REPLY NEEDED.

I found out something from this email that I didn't know: citizens of Burkina Faso are apparently called Burkinabes. So don't ever let anyone tell you that scam emails are completely useless. (Speaking of useless, here's some useless trivia: Burkina Faso used to be called Upper Volta. I have always wondered if there was a Lower Volta.)

Dear Friend,

I am the head of Accounts and Audit Department of Bank of Africa, Ouagadougou . I decided to contact you after a careful thought that you may be capable of handling this business transaction which i explained below;

In my department i discovered an abandoned sum of $18.5m US dollars (Eighteen million, five hundred thousand US dollars). In an account that belongs to one of our foreign customer who died along with his entire family in 2002 in a plane crash.

Since we got information about his death, we have been expecting his next of kin to come over and claim his money because we cannot release it unless somebody applies for it as next of kin or relation to the deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines but unfortunately we learnt that his supposed next of kin(his son and wife) died alongside with him at the plane crash leaving nobody behind for the claim .

It is therefore upon this discovery that I and other officials in my department now decided to make this business proposal to you and release the money to you as the next of kin (We want to present you as his busines asociate )to the deceased for safety and subsequent disbursement since nobody is coming for it and we don't want this money to go into the Bank treasury as unclaimed Bill.

The Banking law and guideline here stipulates that if such money remained Unclaimed after seven years, the money will be transferred into the Bank treasury as unclaimed fund. The request of foreigner as next of kin in this business is occasioned by the fact that the customer was a foreigner and a Burkinabe cannot stand as next of kin to a foreigner .

We agree that 30% of this money will be for you as foreign partner, in respect to the provision of a foreign account, 10 % will be set aside for expenses incurred during the business and 60% would be for me and my colleagues. There after I and my colleagues will visit your country for disbursement according to the percentages indicated.

Therefore to enable the immediate transfer of this fund to your account as arranged,you must apply first to the bank as next of kin of the deceased customer. Upon receipt of your reply, I will send to you by fax or email the text of the application. I will not fail to bring to your notice that this transaction is hitch free and that you should not entertain any atom of fear as all required arrangements have been made for the transfer.

I expect that you contact me immediately as soon as you receive this letter and send your photo so that i will know whom i, dealing with.

Hoping to hear from you immediately.

Yours faithfully,
DR Ciakaru Umaru,
Accounts & Audit Department ,
Bank of Africa

Nb.also give me your telephone and fax numbers for easy comunication with you

ciakaru_umaru509@hotmail.fr