An emergency transaction from China

-START-

///Me (personal mail): *checks spam*

///Zhen Li: Is this your private mail or your work mail?

///Me: *deletes mail* <-- this was a mistake, because the email ID I contacted her was on CC, and I didn't take note of the actual sender's mail

///Me (bait mail):
Who is this?

///Zhen Li (zli762965@gmail.com):
My name is Mrs Zhen Li and I am a staff of Bank of China, here in Hong Kong attached to Private Banking Services, I am contacting you concerning a customer and an investment placed under our banks management; as a matter of fact it was roughly 5 years ago. I would respectfully request that you keep the contents of this mail private and also to kindly respect the integrity of the information you come by as a result of this email. I contacted you independently and no one is informed of this communication; I would like to intimate you with certain facts that I believe would be of interest to you and benefit the both of us.

At the very beginning of 2013, the subject matter came to our bank to engage in business discussions with our Private Banking Services Department. He informed us that he had a financial portfolio of $20 Million United States Dollars, which he wished to have us turn over (invest) on his behalf. I was the officer assigned to his case; I made numerous suggestions in line with my duties as the de-facto chief operations officer of the Private Banking Services Department, especially given the volume of funds he wished to put into our bank.


We met on numerous occasions prior to any investments being placed, and however I encouraged him to consider various growth funds with prime ratings. The favored route in my advice to customers is to start by assessing data on 600 traditional stocks, bond managers and 200 managers of alternative investments. Based on my advice, we spun the money around various opportunities and made attractive margins for our first months of operation, the accrued profit with interest included, stood at this point at over US$27, 712,068.00, this margin was not the full potential of the fund but he desired low risk guaranteed returns on investments and in trading market the lower the risk the lesser the profit.


Towards the end of 2014, he asked that the money be liquidated because he needed to make an urgent investment requiring cash payments in Europe. He directed that I liquidate the funds and have it transfer to a firm in Europe. I informed him that our bank would have to make special arrangements to have this done and in order not to circumvent due process, the bank would have to make an 8.9% deduction from the funds to cater for banking and statutory charges. He complained about the charges but later came around when I explained to him the complexities of the task he was asking of us. Cash movement across borders has become especially strict since the incidents of 9/11 but nevertheless I contacted the firm in Europe and had the funds transfer to mainland Europe, I undertook all the processes and made sure I followed his precise instructions. He told me he wanted the money there in anticipation of his arrival from Norway later that week. This was the last communication we had.


After about a week I got a call from the security firm informing us of the inactivity of that particular portfolio. This was an astounding position as far as I was concerned, given the fact that I managed the private banking sector, I was the only one who knew about the deposit, and I could not understand why he had not come forward to claim his deposit. I made futile efforts to locate him; I immediately passed the task of locating him to the internal investigations department of our bank. Four months later, information trickled in from British homeland security, that he was apparently dead, a person who suited his description was declared dead of a heart attack in Norway; we were soon able to gather more information and the cause of death was confirmed. With this information at hand I inform the security firm to return the transfer back to our bank in Hong Kong.

Then my bank immediately launched an investigation into possible surviving next of kin to alert about the situation and also to come forward to claim his estate. If you are familiar with private banking affairs, those who patronize our services usually prefer anonymity, but also some levels of detachment from conventional processes. In his bio-data form, he listed no next of kin. In the field of private banking, opening an account with us means no one will know of its existence, accounts are rarely held under a name; depositors use numbers and codes to make the accounts anonymous. This bank also gives the choice to depositors of having their mail sent to them or held at the bank itself, ensuring that there are no traces of the account and as I said, rarely do they nominate next of kin. Private banking clients apart from not nominating next of kin also usually in most cases leave wills in our care, in this case; he died Intestate.

In line with our internal processes for account holders who have passed away, we instituted our own investigations in good faith to determine who should have the right to claim the estate, this investigation for several months was futile. We have scanned every continent and used our private investigation affiliate companies to get to the root of the problem. It is this investigation that resulted in my decision to obtain your contact details and contact you, being as a foreigner, as a potential benefactor of the estate even if you are in no way affiliated with this individual (the deceased).

My official capacity dictates that I am the only party to supervise the investigation and the only party to receive the results of the investigation. What this means, with you being a foreigner, I have considered the fact that our dear late fellow died with no identifiable family member. This leaves me as the only person with the full picture of what the prevailing situation is in relation to the deposit and the late beneficiary of the deposit. According to normal practice, after all investigation has been done and there is no one to come forward and make claimed, the portfolio will be left dormant and as a result of the protracted inactivity of the portfolio, and by the end of the current financial year a broadcast request is been made for statements of claims to our bank by the Chinese government, and failing to receive viable claims we will most probably revert the deposit back to the Chinese government. This will result in the money entering the Chinese government treasury. This will not happen if I have my way.

What I wish to relate to you might be a smack of unethical practice but I want you to understand something; it is only an outsider to the banking world who finds the internal politics of the banking world aberrational. The world of private banking especially is fraught with huge rewards for those who occupy certain offices and oversee certain portfolios; you should have begun by now to put together the general direction of what I propose. At this moment there is US$27, 712,068.00 deposited, I alone have the deposit details and my bank will release the deposit to no one unless I instruct them to do so. I alone know of the existence of this deposit for as far as the finance firm is concerned, the transaction with our deceased customer concluded when the funds were returned back to sender (my bank), all outstanding interactions in relation to the file are just customer services and due process. This bank has spent great amounts of money trying to track the family of the deceased; they have investigated for months and have found no family but however the investigation has officially come to an end in 2015 and since then the portfolio has remained dormant and it is now on the edge of being turned to the Chinese government.

My proposal; I am prepared to place you in a position whereby an instruction is given to officially release the deposit to you as the closest surviving associate, and all etiquette shall be done in accordance with the rule of banking law, I certainly can guarantee you that, by the common law, the power of bequeathing is coeval with the first rudiments of the law, and this power has been extended to all. There is no ruling which prevents an inheritance from being so exhausted by legacies as to render it unworthy of the heir's acceptance; basically all persons of sound mind are competent to bequeath and devise real and personal estate, excepting infants, with all this I would say we have the clear advantage to carry out a smooth and perfect operation whereby the paper work shall be coordinated in such a way that your status as a sole beneficiary is confirmed. Upon receipt of the deposit, I am prepared to share the money with you in half and no more; that is: I will simply nominate you as the next of kin and have them release the deposit to you; afterwards we share the proceeds in two equal parts.

I would have gone ahead to ask the funds be released to me, but that would have drawn a straight line to me and my involvement in claiming the deposit, but on the other hand, you as a foreigner would easily pass as the beneficiary with the rights to claim, I assure you that I could have the deposit released to you in a few days. I will simply inform our bank of the final closing of the file relating to the customer, and instruct them to release the deposit to you; with these two things: all is done.

We can fine-tune this based on our interactions, I am aware of the consequences of this proposal and I ask that if you find no interest in this project that you should discard this mail. I ask also, that you do not be vindictive or destructive, if my offer is of no appeal to you, delete this message and forget I ever contacted you; please do not destroy my career because you do not approve of my proposal. You may not know this but people like me who have made tidy sums out of comparable situations run a whole private banking sector, I am not a criminal and what I do, I do not find against good conscience, this may be
I cannot let this chance pass me by and I hope you understand, because for once I found myself in total control and face to face with my destiny. These chances won't pass me by, I ask that you do not destroy my chance, if you will not work with me, please let me know, and hence move on with my life, but do not destroy me; I am a woman with family and this is an occasion to provide them with new opportunities. There is a reward for this project and it is a task well worth undertaking, I have evaluated the risks and the only risk I have here is from you refusing to work with me and alerting my bank; I am the only one who knows of this situation, good fortune will bless you and plant you into the center of relevance in my life, let share the blessing.hard for you to understand, but the dynamics of my industry dictates that I make this move. Such opportunities only come once in a lifetime.

If you find yourself interested in working with me, please do respond to my email positively, then I will initiate this process towards a quick conclusion. It is necessary to inform you that under no condition should you contact me via official channels; I will simply deny knowing you and about this project. I repeat, I do not want you contacting me through our official lines neither do I want you contacting me through my official email account. Contact me only through this email address; I do not want any direct link between you and me. My official lines are not secure lines as they are periodically monitored to assess our level of customer care in line with our Total Quality Management policy, do observe this instruction religiously. Please note that I am a woman; happily married with three children.

I send you this mail not without a measure of fear as to what the consequences might be, but I know within me that nothing ventured is nothing gained and that success and riches never come easy or on a platter of gold, this is the one truth I have learned from my private banking clients; do not betray my confidence. If we can be of one accord I shall have the pleasure of meeting you, after this task has been completed.

I await your response with interest, to enable us to proceed with the project.

Yours Sincerely,
Mrs Zhen Li

///Me:
No thank you.

///Me:
I'm highly doubting the authenticity of this email, which is why I'm being hesitant. No hard feelings, Mrs. Zhen...

///Me:
If you can prove it to me that what you said was true, I might reconsider.

///Zhen Li:
I want to thank you once again for getting back to me,I am very glad and hope you are a noble, matured, and trustworthy person whom I can rely on for your capabilities to handle this transaction.It would be safer for us to communicate by email for now because my cell line and all other Staff in my bank are tapped and monitored. I hope you see the reason with my decision on us talking by mail for now.I do believe we will achieve all we want if we listen and take each other's advice seriously. Before I contacted you I did consider what you might think about my kind of person but the risk was worth taken and the fact remains that if I do nothing about this opportunity, the Chinese Government will confiscate the funds and take it into the Chinese national treasury. What I am relating to you may look like a smack unethical practice of Private Banking but I want you to understand something. It is only an outsider to the banking world who finds the internal politics of the banking world aberrational. The world of private banking especially is fraught with huge rewards for those who occupy certain offices and oversee certain portfolios, be rest assured that my position as an inside in this transaction will help us to conclude this deal without any problem if you listen to my advice.

Prior to the legality of this transaction, you have nothing to worry about because the entire document will be done to meet all international claims standard, I want to inform you that the attorney I am using will prepare the affidavits which shall legally put you in place as beneficiary and will also obtain the necessary clearances which will cover all the aspects involved in this transaction from the Hong Kong Justice department. I will be responsible for the attorney payment so don’t think about the attorney fee. I must also inform you that you will not have to travel to anywhere for any reason, because the attorney shall be handling all matters of probate on your behalf, you will be duly represented here by this attorney, he is an accredited lawyer with vast experience in issues of inheritance here in China. He will have all the documents perfected, and with these documents he shall come forward to apply for the immediate release and transfer of the funds to you. I do not need you to send any money to me for any reason as I will take care of the expenses that will come my way on my end.

Let me throw some light on the proceedings that will be involved in this transaction. First I will need to prepare an affidavit at Hong Kong justice department; this document will place you as the beneficiary of the fund. In order to do this successfully I will employ the services of a lawyer, the lawyer will on your behalf, file a beneficiary affidavit at the Ministry of Justice and the beneficiary affidavit will pass through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the necessary authorization. It will be officially confirmed that the funds are bequeathed to you in accordance with laws here in Hong Kong (China), as you know financial assets and real estate could be bequeathed to a close friend, a relative or associate, so the issue of being related is not significant; you will simply be registered as a close associate of the deceased while he was alive.

After completing the paperwork before I can transfer the fund to you, I know the transfer charges will cost a lot of money but like I said before don't let expenses bother you as I will get some short term loan to take care of the expenses on my end including documentation, lawyer fee and the transfer charges. All I only need from you is to be responsible for the account provision that will be suitable for this deposit on your end, even if it attracts any expenses.

I want to remind you that this transaction needs your commitment and diligent follow up. If you work seriously, the entire transaction should be over in a couple of days. Please take some time to think again about your rule in this transaction to see if you are ready to work with me and let me know so we can begin this project with immediate effect.

Sincerely,
(Mrs Zhen Li) <-- didn't type this

///Me:
Mrs. Zhen, I would prefer our contact via email, as I don't have a cellphone number, nor a land-line number.

///Zhen Li:
I want to reassure you that I will do everything as I have told you in my previous email to archive our aim in this transaction. Since I have resolved to entrust this transaction into your hands, let me remind you that I need your full commitment and diligent follow up, knowing that this transaction is worth US$27,712,068.00 and we will split it on equal bases once this transaction is concluded so I expect that you will be very diligent and keep the affairs of this deal very confidential.

Before we commence, I will want to know precisely the type of occupation that you do, you should know that this project is highly capital intensive, this is why I have to be very careful, I need your total devotion and trust to see this through, I know we have not met before but I am very confident that we will be able to establish the necessary trust that we need to execute this project.

In order for the attorney to start the necessary paperwork that will place you as the beneficiary of the said fund, I will need you to send me a scanned copy of your identification International Passport, Driver's License or any other form of identification and your current full residential address. I will give them to the attorney who will do the paperwork and it will also prove to me that I am doing this transaction with the correct person, as soon as I get this from you I will commence the paperwork that will place you as the beneficiary, all documents will be done at the Hong Kong justice department. I hope you will understand why I need all this; the money in question is big, so we need to do everything to meet all international inheritance claims standards and I want to ensure that I know you well before I proceed with transferring the fund to your account.

Ensure that you keep this project confidential; do not discuss it with anybody because of the confidential nature of this transaction and my work, your best friend today can be an opponent against you tomorrow so never knows what can happen. You might be surprised that my husband does not know anything about this transaction. I assure you that there are no disadvantages, all I can see here is benefit for the both of us at the end in as much as we are on the same page and you follow my instruction diligently.

I have attached a copy of my international passport to this email for your perusal, so you can know whom you are working with.

Please reply soonest.

Regards,
(Mrs Zhen Li) <-- didn't type this, but attached a photocopy of her passport below

///Me:
Why did you send your identification? I want to know the legitimacy of this transaction, not your official identification document! Also, I'm still not sure about this. It's very risky...

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Every time I get a response, I switch from Wi-Fi to cellular, switch off GPS, and enabled VPN, with location set to America.

As Linoline stated, this is a scam format. Moving to active baits.

That's all you need, to know that it's a scam.

I just received this email .

I am Zhen Li, Chairperson Audit Committee of Bank of China, here in Hong Kong(https://www.boc.cn/en/). I urge you to ignore the length of this message and read this message for your understanding. It is of great importance.

I am contacting you concerning a deceased customer and an investment he placed under our bank's management a few years ago. I respectfully request that you keep the content of this mail confidential and respect the integrity of the information you come by as a result of this mail. I contacted you independently of our investigation and no one is informed of this communication. I would like to intimate you with certain facts that I believe would be of interest to you and I.

In 2015, the subject matter Mr. Erik .T. Andries (An Engineer), now deceased, came to our bank to engage in business discussions with our private banking division. He informed us that he had a financial portfolio of $8,000,000.00 (Eight Million Euros) which he wanted us to invest on his behalf. Due to the huge amount, I was made the accounting officer for his transactions, I made numerous suggestions in line with my duties as the De-facto chief operations officer of the private investment banking department, especially given the amount of funds he wished to put into our bank. We met on numerous occasions prior to any investments being placed.

In mid-2016, Mr. Erik.T.Andries asked that his money be liquidated because he needed to make an urgent landed property investment requiring cash payments in Spain and since he will be frequenting the United Kingdom later that year, he directed that I liquidate the funds and oversee that it is deposited in a security vault in any low-key but formidable private bank in the United Kingdom. I informed him that the Bank of Chna will have to make special arrangements to have this done and in order not to circumvent due process, the bank would have to make a 5 % deduction from the funds to cater for banking and statutory charges, which he agreed. I then contacted my affiliate in the United Kingdom and after due consultations, the balance funds after the 5 % deduction for banking and statutory charges which was now $7,600,000.00 (Seven Million Six Hundred Thousand Euros) were made available and transferred to High Wealth Investment Private Bank in Glasgow, Scotland. The deceased told me he wanted the money there in anticipation of his arrival from South Africa later that week. This was the last communication we had which transpired around 25th October 2016. In June 2021, we were contacted by High Wealth Investment Private Bank informing us of the dormant activity of that particular portfolio.

I made efforts to locate the deceased but it was unsuccessful. I immediately passed the task of locating him to the internal investigations department at our bank. Eight days later, information started to trickle in, apparently our client, has passed on. A person who suited his description was declared dead in Cannes, South of France. We were soon enough able to verify the story, his death certificate and cause of death was confirmed. He died of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, aged 64. Unfortunately, In his bio-data form, he listed no next of kin. With this information at hand I inform the security firm to return the transfer back to our bank in China.

The deceased died without a testate, which means that our dear late fellow died with no known or identifiable family member. And in line with our internal processes for account holders who have passed away, we instituted our own investigations in good faith to determine who should have the right to claim the estate. This investigation has for the past months been unfruitful. It is this investigation that resulted in my being furnished with your details as a possible relative of the deceased.

According to practice, the bank will by the end of this financial year, broadcast a request for statements of claim - failure to receive any legally backed claims, they will revert the deposit to China Treasury Department, This I intend to change if I have my way.

Now, what I wish to relate to you might smack of unethical practice but I want you to understand something. It is only an outsider to the banking world who finds the internal politics of the banking world aberrational, the world of private banking especially is fraught with huge rewards for those who occupy certain offices and oversee certain portfolios, you should have by now begin to put together the general direction of what I propose.

MY PROPOSAL IS THIS:
You share a peculiar detail with the late fellow-in this case, you both are from the same country and share the surname. I am prepared to place you in a position as the next of kin to my late client and to instruct High Wealth Investment Private Bank to release the funds to you as the sole beneficiary and next of kin.

I am prepared to share the money with you in half (50/50). That means I wish to front you as the next of kin, present you with the necessary documents and have them release the funds to you. After that, we share the proceeds 50/50. I assure you that I could have the deposit released to you within a week. I will simply inform the bank of the final closing of the file relating to the deceased. I will then officially communicate with my Bank and instruct them to release the fund to you. With these two things, all can be done. The alternative would be for us to have my Bank direct the funds to another bank with you as the account holder.

I do not want you contacting me through my official phone lines nor do I want you contacting me through my official email account for both are being monitored due to my work, but you can and should contact me through this private email address. I do not want any direct link between you and me to raise suspicion. My official lines and email are periodically monitored to assess our level of customer care in line with our Total Quality Management Policy (TQMP). Please observe this instruction religiously. Please, again, note I am a family woman, my husband and kids are the most important beings in my life. I sent you this mail not without a measure of fear as to what the consequences are, but I know within me that nothing ventured is nothing gained and that success and riches never come easy or on a platter of gold. This is the one truth I have learnt from my many years of banking experience, so I beg you not to betray my confidence if we can be of one accord.

Please if you are afraid of this project and would like to discontinue or find it cynical, please destroy this email and continue living your life like I never made contact with you, I am a woman of integrity and respect, my colleagues hold me in high regard, but if you are interested in this project, give me the go ahead and let's get started. I await your urgent response.

Best Regard

Zhen Li

Chairperson Audit Committee bank of China