Thanksgiving Cote d'Ivoire Style

I met with Matty the Mainer after Thanksgiving to update him on what's been going on in my life. My holiday was rather non-descript, while his was an adventure. It all started with this innocuous e-mail:

My name is Charles Kobenan a Banker and accountant with BIAO BANK Abidjan.I am the personal accounts manager to Engr Lake Poirier, a National of your country, who used to work with an oil servicing company here in Cote Ivoire.

My client, his wife, and their three children were involved in the ill fated Kenya Airways crash in the coasts of Abidjan in January 2000 in which all passengers on board died. Since then I have made several inquiries to your embassy to locate any of my clients extended relatives but has been unsuccessful.After several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to trace his last name over the internet,to see if I could locate any member of his family hence I contacted you.

Of particular interest is this huge deposit with our bank here in,where the deceased has an account valued at about ($16 million US dollars).They have issued me a noti ce to pro vide the next of kin or the bank will declare the account unservisable and thereby send the funds to the bank treasury.

Since I have been unsuccessful in locating the relatives for over last 2 years now, I will seek your consent to present you as the next of kin of the deceased since you have the same last names, so that the proceeds of this account valued at ($16million US dollars) can be paid to you and then you and I can share the money.

All I require is your honest cooperation to enable us see this deal through.I guarantee that this will be executed under all legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law. In your reply mail, I want you to give me your full names, address, date of birth, telephone and fax numbers.If you can handle this with me, reach me now through this mail box
for more details.
Thanking you for your anticipated cooperation.
Sincerely,
Charles Kobenan.

Instead of deleting the letter and moving on, Matty set up a meeting at a coffee shop in Veazie, Maine. A man claiming to be Charles showed up, and Matty said if he was going to put this together, he'd need some start up capital. The man couldn't undertstand, because all he wanted was his personal information. But he obliged and gave him $1000.

The rest of the details are sketchy, but I guess he used the $1000 to make a trip to the Cote d'Ivoire better business bureau, and they mistook him for a celebrity looking to adopt a child. His French is bad, which exacerbated the mix-up, and now he was sitting before me with his two-year old son Goodtimes. Quite a Thanksgiving.