Bob McCarty Writes

During this presidential election season, I’ve written my fair share of posts about Barack Obama, his involvement with unscrupulous characters and the possibility that he isn’t even a legal citizen of the United States.  Now, it seems the Democratic Party presidential nominee has become a magnet for trouble on an international scale as evidenced by the suspicious e-mail message below which I received Monday:

Dear Bob:

I am a Kenyan journalist and blogger working for [name removed to protect innocent company being used by this scammer], a blog based out of San Francisco, CA.

I have very valuable private and confidential damning info about Senator Barack Obama that may tilt the stakes in the presidential election and change the course of American history. I also have an autographed copy of a muslim Qur’an that he gave to a girlfriend on a previous Kenya visit just before he went to Harvard.

The girlfriend may be ready to talk about her relationship with the wily senator.

Please STRICTLY do not blow my cover, I beg you, call me on my cell phone [number redacted] for more information.

Regards,
Sam Ooko

Smelling a rat, I knew exactly who should handle the case and have a little fun at the same time — Skunkfeathers, a friend of mine and occasional guest blogger at Bob McCarty Writes who makes a hobby out of having fun with e-mail scammers at his blog of the same name.  Soon after receiving the message from “Mr. Ooko,” I forwarded it to him with the following salacious offer:

“Would you like to tackle this as my ‘representative’ and see what you can uncover?  Let me know.”

Of course, Skunkfeathers was eager to take on the case.  Below is the text of the first communication he sent to Mr. Ooko yesterday [Note: “Mark Baynor” is not his real name]:

Dear Mr. Ooko,

Mr. McCarty has forwarded your intriguing information to me for vetting.  Intriguing it does sound, but can you authenticate it?  Are you wishing to provide this “valuable private and confidential damning info” covertly, without it’s being exposed tracked to you, or does this matter to you?  Are you seeking recompense for it’s release?

If you choose to follow up with additional info and any quid pro quo request, please do so with me, and I’ll run it by Mr. McCarty.

Give me something concrete to work from, and I’ll be happy to pass along your bona fides for appropriate use.  Bearing in mind that audio communications — save for on encrypted, secure landlines — can be monitored and recorded, let’s keep this communication via email for the time being, if confidentiality is important to you.

Mark Baynor

During the 2 o’clock hour this morning, a response arrived from Mr. Ooko, prompting Skunkfeathers (a.k.a., “Mark”) to advise me that “…this reply from Sam has SCAM written all over it.”

He added, “I bet if I act ‘convinced’ and offer the guy $14,500 Euros for the ‘whole banana’, I’ll have him at least momentarily the ‘hero’ of his particular fly-infested internet cafe…”

Below is the text of that wee-hours message Mark received from Mr. Ooko:

Dear Mark:

Thank you for your email. I really wouldn’t mind if I was credited with providing this intriguing information to the world, but I am not sure of my personal safety and that of my informer when it shall emerge that we are the ones who gave this information out.

Both my informer, who happens to know the senator and his Kenyan family only too well, and I believe we should tread a little more carefully in the meantime, because we may have to pass this Quran and pictures of the senator with this informer to you once we agree you’ll keep it secret and confidential.

Then only when you have executed a plan to release this information to the American public will we come out publicly, if need be. We are aware that a political career and hopes of perhaps half of America may be lost with this revelation, so we think this is a wise idea. Just imagine the repercussions here in Kenya  if it was found out that we kind of stopped BO from ascending to the highest office on the globe!

My career and professional reputation will go to the dogs if I am ever linked to this. Besides writing on eco and green websites, I am also the East Africa representative of the Commonwealth Journalists Association, so the stakes are definitely high for me, sir.

Elizabeth, my informer, insists she needs a safe haven before she agrees that we send the Qur’an to you by courier. She insists on USD 5,000 before she lets me send the Qur’an itself by courier to you in the US. Considering the high danger she is putting herself in, she is ready to go out of circulation for awhile.

She has requested that you send the money by MoneyGram through me. My names for the transaction are Samson Aola Ooko, Address: POB 62469, 00200 Nairobi, Kenya. There will be a reference number for the transaction that you will provide by email.

Here are some facts about the info I have:

1. Elizabeth (2nd name withheld) was christened Hanisa by BO during their brief friendship here, having met in 1986 during the senator’s first visit to his Kenyan relations. Hanisa is a very popular female name in Indonesia. She is now a divorced mother of 3 living in Kisumu, near Kogelo, his father’s birth place.

2. BO’s parents and Elizabeth’s parents were village mates and family friends. Elizabeth’s dad died in an automobile accident in 1965 when she was only 2 years old when a car driven by BO senior crashed. BO senior was DUI, as was confirmed by police.

3. BO particularly wanted to meet her because of this fatal event, to convey his regrets and to research more on his father’s relationship with her father’s family. Their relationship begun from here.

4. Mr. Said Obama, BO’s uncle, visited Elizabeth (let’s call her EH from now on) in 2000 and in 2004 around the time BO was engaged in his senate election campaign and warned her to keep mum on her interactions with BO ‘or face dire consequences’. Seems Said introduced them but she wouldn’t admit this to me. I tried to meet Said this week but I was rebuffed; the family wouldn’t see any journalists or strange visitors and the homestead is under a 24-hour armed guard.

5. Twice she has been visited by Kenyan intelligence officials since 2006 and ordered not to speak anything about this interaction or relationship; was questioned about the Qur’an given to her by BO but told the sleuths she’d lost it years ago.

6. Three US embassy officials from Nairobi have visited her home in Kisumu on similar business but she stood her ground. She now fears for her life if it was ever found she keeps the Qur’an. It has an inscription: “If you are looking for truth, here’s where to find it!” written by BO himself!

7. I sense there’s an element of betrayal given that her dad died from BO senior’s irresponsibility, so to speak, and the persistent persecution from the Obama family here. Said Obama keeps checking on her once in a while. Her ex-hubby can corraborate this story.

8. She once took BO to meet someone at a Kisumu mosque then, that person turns out to be a senior official of SUPKEM and an influential imam based in muslim-dominated Mombasa where there was so much anti-Kikuyu violence following the December 29, 2007 polls. I am still investigating if this man (name withheld) has a possible link to the violence.

9. They met in Nairobi and travelled together to Kisumu then Kogelo village, BO senior’s home. She has about six photos of her together with BO, one in an kissing embrace although she insists it wasn’t a fling. But she refuses to hand over the photos until she’s certain her safety is assured.

10. Four months ago when I met her, EH didn’t mention the fact that her father was from the same village with BO’s dad, but she’s opened up more. She has agreed to discuss further with you but only when she’s already in hiding.

12. EH has consented that once she receives the money I will provide all her contacts to you, and that I may scan the Qur’an and the photos and email the images to you, before sending the originals to your address in the US by UPS courier.

Please, please, sir, I beg you once again. Keep this email TOP SECRET. This is the first authentic and REAL source of info on BO’s muslim heritage in spite of his denials.

Please do call me if there are any questions or you require clarifications on the above.

Regards,
Sam.

Notice how the scammer has trouble counting (he goes from 10 to 12) and spelling (numerous examples) and is now on a first-name basis with Mark.  I love it!

Before Mark had a chance to reply to Mr. Ooko, a “VERY IMPORTANT and URGENT” message arrived, addressed to both Mark and me shortly after 8 a.m. CST:

VERY IMPORTANT and URGENT

Bob and Mark:

Please will you call me immediately, something’s just came up that might interest you. It is about Kenyan intelligence officials on Obama’s family here in Kenya. There are nosing around trying to find my informer who already is in hiding…

Tel: [number redacted again]

Sam.

Upon receiving this message, Mark crafted the following message that, to our busy scammer friend, will likely appear to be the next-to-last step before he can “seal the deal”:

Mr, Ooko,

I have discussed this with my partner, and have decided to agree to the following:

1.  Complete confidentiality for you and your source, until and unless you dictate otherwise.  What we go forward with will not expose you without your okay.

2.  Recognizing your source’s need for caution, considering the potentially-volatile nature of the information she has, I still need something concrete for authentication to move forward.  Can your source send one snippet of supporting evidence via you, to me?  Say, in the form of  a page from this book, with something concrete to tie it to the Senator?  Anything would help, as time is tight in America with the election less than one week away now.

3.  Bearing in mind the nature of this, we are not of a mind that your source’s request for $5,000 is enough; I have a slush fund that I have set aside for use on garnering information of a sensitive nature, and once vetted, am willing to pay for it.  As of now, I have my partner’s okay to increase the payment for the information to $14,500 in Euros, pending receipt of one piece of the evidence for authentication.  With receipt of that, I will send the money accordingly to the location directed in your second email.

I have to tell you that my partner is genuinely excited by your trust and your revelations, and cannot wait to get this information out.  So see if your source and expedite something that he can display with the revelation, ahead of receiving the main body of the book after you receive payment.  As I said, time is of the essence.

Finally:  we would like to discourage phone communications, only because of the ease of intercepting and monitoring telecommunications, as I think you’re well aware.  Your Kenyan security services might use telephone communications to advantage.  I would suspect that if you’re correct with your information, the Obama campaign here would coordinate with their Kenyan security contacts.  So we must proceed quickly, but carefully.

Mark

Hoping to appear more eager than before about obtaining the “private and confidential damning info about Senator Barack Obama,” Mark replied with the following e-mail message:

Mr. Ooko,

I have discussed this further with my partner, and he agrees that perhaps one phone call is in order. I have a friend who is out of town for a week, and he has me watching his place for him in his absence.  I am going to ask you to call me at that number, for security purposes.  I will be at that number 10 minutes from the time I send you this email (I am in the US Mountain Time Zone, approximately 10 hours behind you in Kenya).  I am sending this email at 8:50am, so you can call me at approximately 7pm your time — 10 minutes from now.

[phone number redacted again]

After calling me at this number, get rid of the number.  My friend knows nothing about this, and doesn’t need to know about it.

Mark Baynor

Though missing the 10-minute deadline by almost an hour, Mr. Ooko called and reached the following agreement with his stateside “client” who had put on a crazy-thick “Texican” accent he reserves for conversations with scammers:

Per Mark’s terms, Mr. Ooko agreed to scan a portion of the Qur’an page allegedly bearing Obama’s handwriting and forward it to Mark within 24 hours.  In return, Mark would wire 10,000 Euros to a bank account to be provided by Mr. Ooko.

Next, we waited for the requested image to be e-mailed.  After it didn’t arrived overnight, Mark forwarded the inquiry below to Mr. Ooko:

Mr. Ooko,

Just checked my email, and there’s nothing from you with the evidence you were supposed to scan in and send me.  What’s the deal?  Time is precious, and I’m not forwarding the 10k until I receive the bona fides I requested.  Are you going to provide what I need, or not?

Mark

We waited again, realizing we had given him until 10 a.m. MST today to deliver the “goods.”  Two hours before the deadline, Mr. Ooko sent the following plea to Mark, essentially asking for more time:

Dear Mark:

Hello! I had to travel to EH’s safe house to pick the docs for scanning at a cyber cafe in town, and I shall be sending them to you in two or so hours.

I hadn’t checked my mail this nmorning, but it is nearly 4.00pm now, still 3 hours away from my phone call to you.

Please give me the two hours I have requested as I am commuting by public bus and I want it to be as discreet as possible. As I told you, it is a very sensitive matter, and I am trying to shake off whomever might be trying to follow me. I shall them send them by courier tonight after our phone call.

Regards,
Sam.

Isn’t it funny how conversations involving buses so often involve folks with ties to Obama (see these posts for more details).  But I digress.

Mark replied to Mr. Ooko’s plea for more time as follows:

Sam,

Okay, I’ll be waiting for the documents.  No point in calling me unless you get them sent before the call.  I have to be here to receive them.

Mark

Fifteen minutes and one bumpy bus ride after the deadline, Mr. Ooko forwarded the “evidence” from Nairobi in the form of two photos (below) purported to show Obama’s handwriting and signature on a Qur’an.  Also included was a widely-circulated photo of Obama with his Kenyan relatives.

Pretending to be convinced the documents were legitimate, my scam-baiting colleague Mark sent an e-mail instructing Mr. Ooko to call in 35 minutes and the Kenyan complied.  During that call, the two confirmed details about where each would forward their respective “valuables.”

Scam over.  So much fun!

Click here to see a snapshot of what Mr. Ooko will receive.

* * *

See also:  Skunkfeather’s intro to this post.

Editor’s Note: After publishing this piece, Skunkfeathers and I received an “admission of guilt” e-mail from a person who signed his name as “DK” and claimed responsibility for attempting to perpetrate this scam.  In the e-mail, this person claimed to have stolen the identity of “Sam Ooko.”  Deferring to the possibility that this might be true, I hereby advise my readers that the use of the name above should not be construed as casting a negative light upon anyone bearing that name.

See also:  Scammer Admits, ‘Gentlemen, You Win’