Cons (no, the other kind).

[plutherus]

"Why do you want to con Lonnegan?"
"Cuz I don't know enough about killing to kill him."

(Paul Newman & Robert Redford, The Sting)

I ran across references to this movie this evening while looking into The Who's song "Won't Get Fooled Again".

That quote reminds me of a blog entry I once saw from a 419 scammer ('lo these many years ago.) (Or possibly last August.) In response to queries about how he can sleep at night after conning all these people, he pointed out that he's only conning wealthy westerners, not normal people.

The 419 scam is one where you get email from Nigeria claiming that the sender is a relative of some deposed monarch or oil executive. They have millions of dollars that they want to move out of the country secretly ("so whatever you do, don't tell anybody who might have heard of this scam already!") If you help them, they promise a substantial share of the money. Of course, they have various expenses to meet before they can get ahold of the money. Expenses that you need to send them money for. Expenses which just seem to keep cropping up, more and more, the more money you send them. Until finally you threaten to call the authorities and they disappear. Or you fly to Nigeria to meet them and are never heard of again, shortly after you empty all your accounts from Nigerian ATMs. Anyway, it's a scam, it's very common from Nigeria, especially with the advent of email and Spam (before it was done through mail and fax). According to Wikipedia, 419 is the criminal code for fraud in Nigeria, which is why these are called that. The scam is also apparently descended from the Spanish Prisoner scam, which was popular in the early 1900s and made famous by Mamet's movie of that name.

Anyway, the scammer in the blog was trying to justify his actions as just desserts towards the west for their efforts in destabilizing his country and pumping millions of dollars into supporting various dictators in order to get their hands on the oil therein. Back in the 1980s, the IMF agreed to loan several billion dollars to Nigeria, but only if they'd privatize their oil industry - selling it off to various multinational corporations at incredibly good deals (good for the corps, not for Nigeria). The dictator of the week agreed, and shortly thereafter fled the country with a healthy severance package.

The deal, along with attendant loan from the IMF, and various demands it has made over the decades since then, has largely been blamed for the poor state of Nigeria today.

I don't agree that any of this gives anyone the right to steal from anyone else (for one thing, note that it is only the relatively wealthy, who have access to the internet and international trade who are running the scams, not poor people who could really use the money.) But I can kinda see where he's coming from.

Plus, I've always been interested in con games, I'm not sure why (no, not professionally :P). And the forward fee one was always one of my favorites in that the ones who get taken the most are the ones who try to make a grab for the full amount instead of settling for their 40%. Not that there ever is an actual "full amount" of course, but the mark doesn't know that.

And anyway, if someone's going to blame you for fucking up their country, wouldn't you rather it be someone who didn't know enough about killing to kill you?