moshood and me

DATE:01-11-2001
ATTN:SIR/MADAM

With presumed reliance allow me to introduce myself, My name is Moshood Abacha the son of the former president of Nigeria (General Sanni Abacha). He died mysteriously on the 8th of June three years ago (may almighty Allah bless his soul).

I am sure you are familiar with all what my family is presently facing because it is now household news.

In fact we the family have been instructed to return all that we have, even funds in offshore accounts has been frozen without mercy, my brother Mohammed is in prison and our mother Maryam is under house arrest all
in the name of “democracy” which leaves me and a few loyal personal assistant to manage the family affairs.

Although your relationship with the family is unclear, I believe you can be trusted to assist me move more than $60,000,000.00 (Sixty Million USD ) before it is seized by the new democratic government, the funds is Presently been kept in a private vault which location is only known to my mother and I.

Kindly get in touch with me directly with your terms, suggestions and ideas including your private Telephone number to ensure confidentiality, your assistance will be greatly rewarded, do not fear or doubt as I am aware about my country’s image abroad therefore should you require that I prove myself I will gladly do so, should you choose not to assist us endeavor to get me informed to enable me seek the aid of other reputable associates.

Allah’s blessings.

Moshood Abacha
On Behalf of the Family

Moshood,

You are lucky to have caught me. I am currently on expedition in Nepal, looking at yak farms. I am a procurer for Kathie Lee Gifford’s clothing line at K-Mart, and Ms. Gifford demands nothing but the finest yak wool for her running suits. Evidently the yak wool we have been getting is “too scratchy.” Go figure.

I’m afraid I don’t have a good phone number to give you right now. We are traveling from village to village, and our satellite phone has proved next to useless. There are numerous Internet cafes, however, so we can correspond by e-mail, if you like.

I wracked my brain trying to establish a link between your family and myself, and I couldn’t come up with one. I thought for a moment we may have had a clothing factory in Nigeria to make Kathie Lee’s Peek-A-Boo Panties (c), but my manservant Pepe just reminded me that the factory is in Nicaragua, not Nigeria — an honest mistake.

Pepe seems to think my parents may be the connection. They are in the hotel industry and he is positive that they were working on a multi-million dollar deal in Nigeria a few years ago. The deal fell through, but perhaps they kept in touch with your father.

I do remember a stern-looking man with a military demeanor that I golfed with once as I made my way to Burma with my parents a few years ago. It could have been your father. Did he golf? What was his handicap?

I am sorry that I am not more familiar with the current politics in your country, but I know what you mean about “democratic” forces. We had to close several of Ms. Gifford’s clothing factories in Malaysia because “democratic” agencies claimed that the 12-year-old girls we were using to sew clothing for Kathie Lee’s son Cody were too young. Have you ever seen Cody? He is just cute as a button. I have pictures I could send.

Now on to your financial difficulty. $60 million USD? Whew, that’s a lot of cash. That’s almost as much money as we make in an entire year from Kathie Lee’s Too-Tight T’s (c), and by that I mean the entire line, not just one model.

It sounds like you need to get that money out of the country, fast. I would turn you over to my parents, who had a more direct relationship with your father, but my father died recently as well, God bless his soul, as he was training to run with the bulls in Pamplona. (I told him yaks were less predictable than bulls, but he refused to listen.) My mother does not have the financial savvy of my father, and I am afraid she is quite useless when dealing with sums of over a few million dollars.

Normally, I would suggest a simple electronic transfer, but you say you have the money in a private vault. That makes it more difficult. I have at my disposal a “team” that we use to quell uprisings at factories. (Many of the workers do not share Kathie Lee’s sunny disposition! Ha! Ha!)

We could use the team to move the money quickly and efficiently to a neighboring country — say Cameroon — and re-deposit it there. Then we could transfer it easily to any bank in the world. Voila!

As for my costs, I think 10 percent would be fair. Is $6 million okay with you? I would even pay for the commando squad with my own funds (or Kathie Lee’s; I could easily mask the expense in the losses from her last album. Ha-ha again!)

Let me know as soon as possible if this is acceptable to you. The commandos are gearing up to bring “peace and order” to a control-top pantyhose factory in the Sudan, so they would be “in the neighborhood,” so to speak.

Respectfully,

John Isling, B.S.
Chief Purchaser
Kathie Lee Gifford Enterprises