Chapter 23 022

A young man in a silk shirt browses the web while sipping herbal tea in an Internet cafe.This is a small town called Festak in Lagos, which is also a village in the city.A maze of intertwined streets, alleys leading to alleys and alleys leading to dead ends.In this small town, people often go back and forth from the starting point. In front of rows of computers in Internet cafes, people hunched their shoulders and kept puffing.The ceiling fan whirred.Outside the Internet cafe is a busy world, the sound of car horns and the roar of engines is deafening. The young man in the silk shirt discovered Laura's father in a forum for retired teachers and stalked him through cyberspace for weeks.Although the young man already had other targets -- a business owner from Tallahassee, USA and a pastor from County Wicklow, Ireland -- and was kneading them like dough, the retired teacher caught his eye. attention.On the surface, this is a diligent and serious old man. He posts comments on woodworking websites and Internet forums, and pours water on other people's posts.He posted pictures of his granddaughters online, telling people how to use the awl and tips for welding seams.

"I'm a chimney sweep," Henry used to declare. "Will it bring me luck if I kiss you?" Helen asked. "It's good luck for me, but it's not good for you." I am a chimney sweep. Henry said it as a joke at first, but as time went on, the joke became less and less, and the bad mood became more and more obvious. "I'll sweep chimneys, make riding whips, make the best whalebone corsets, deliver milk bottles to your door, and I'm a doctor who can make rounds." As a high school crafts teacher (retired), Henry has spent most of his life learning all kinds of skills that are no longer useful. “Does anyone still teach crafting classes these days?” he asked his wife, “beyond vocational technical schools?” The skills he honed and tried to teach others are now considered “crafts,” not basics.

"Oh, stop sweeping the chimney." Helen thought that Henry was thinking too much. "Do you think handicraft is a disappearing art? Then look at housekeeping. It used to be something to be proud of. things, and now? Making bread, baking, sewing is considered a hobby.” "Is this what we've already achieved? Amateurs?" "My grandmother used to pluck the wool and spin the thread herself, but I don't know anything about it. I haven't seen you use windmills and watermills, my dear." But that's exactly the point Henry was making.Henry Curtis could take a carburetor apart, put it back together with his eyes closed, fill it up, and adjust the idle with adroitness.But now that nobody makes carburetors, they've become irrelevant.His wife had a good handwriting, but calligraphy also became irrelevant.And soldering irons and lunchbox fraternities, carburetors and big pie crusts, none of that mattered anymore.

"We're slowly disappearing," he said. "Nonsense!" she replied. "Helen, we are disappearing, dissolving little by little, but we don't realize it. When I shave in the morning, I am surprised to find that I can't see myself in the mirror." Helen had discovered early on that there was a worrying tendency in her husband's character.This sentimentality became more and more serious after retirement.So one night, when the "disappearing man" was looking for items in the kitchen that hadn't been moved in 20 years, and was about to call out "Helen, where's the...", Helen put down the magazine in her hand and shouted at him. Shouted: "Henry, let's run away together and go to a warm place."

The travel plan cheered Henry up.He went online and typed in a few search terms, bewildered by the options.So he turned to his friends on Facebook for help.They advised him to consult with his community.So he posted a post on a retired teacher forum: My wife and I are going on a long vacation, maybe a sea trip.Can you give me some advice? "Alaska is amazing!" "Go to Norwegian Fjords, you won't be disappointed! I can send you a link." I want to go somewhere warmer. "Have you considered going to Africa?" Never, would love to go there, but fear pirates.Ha ha!

"Your kids will love Africa." Maybe the grandkids will like it. "So you're a grandpa? You're so lucky! How old are they? Can they travel?" They were just four and a half years old, twins.Helen (my wife) wanted to take them to Disney World while they were young.But I don't think that place is suitable for an old man like me.Ha ha! The young man in the silk shirt wiped his neck with a folded handkerchief.Lagos won't make you forget Lagos, that's the problem.Despite the herbal tea and whirring ceiling fan, he was still sweating profusely. Across the two computers, a dull-eyed, unresponsive guy asked the room loudly, "How do you spell 'heritage'? It doesn't appear in my spell check."

"That's because your spelling is so bad that even a dictionary can't help you, go to hell!" Then there were scattered laughter in the room.Another added: "It would have taken him two weeks to find the dollar sign!" This remark provoked more laughter.Winston sighed and swallowed his tea, which was lemon tea with ginger.In a corner of the Internet cafe, the radio is playing a song: White people, I ask you, who's the big fool now?Who is the big winner? Outside the Internet cafe, all kinds of vehicles are constantly flowing, and the noise generated is endless.The smell of roast beef and beer wafted in the air.There are so many Internet cafes in Festak Town, just like barbecue stalls and small vendors that can be seen everywhere.It was a long way from Winston's apartment to the Internet cafe, several hours by minibus.If there was a traffic jam, he would take a ride.Although the distance is far away, he comes here every day, because many Internet cafes on both sides of the streets in Festak Town provide Internet satellite services.If there are no vacancies in these Internet cafes, he falls back to those belonging to the users of the Nigerian telecommunications network.

Nigeria Telecom is the national communications service, so it requires Internet cafes using its network to post signs such as "Liars please go away" on the wall.Some slogans are more specific: "No email scrapers!" "No mass emailing!" But these are just formalities.Winston had never seen the owner of an Internet cafe come out to patrol in order to protect the old white mother who lived on the other side of the world.As long as you put a few nairas in the hands of the network administrator, you can freely surf the Internet without worrying about someone coming to make trouble.

Today, Winston sits in an internet café called The Tracker, which charges a little more, but provides a steady stream of mineral water and tea (not free, of course, there are no free things in Lagos).The open window of the Internet cafe faces the street, and the ceiling fan rotates at high speed, which at least makes people feel cool psychologically.In order to save a few bucks and come here to enjoy a little coolness, he had to sweat a lot in those steamer-like Internet cafes first. Winston started a one-man entrepreneurial career with nothing more than some email-scraping software he bought.He starts by using a search engine to search for some random last names, then hits the "select all" command and throws everything into scraping software, which separates email addresses from the rest of the content.He then cuts and pastes these email addresses into the bcc field of any web-based email and adds something fixed like "Dear Sir/Madam, I am a Nigerian in exile. The son of a diplomat..." etc., and attach a separate email address so that the other party can reply.This completes the task.This is science, not art.Winston was well aware of this.The more messages you send, the more likely you are to hear back.This is a matter of probability.

A guy who works like hell can send hundreds or even thousands of emails a day until his account is shut down by the server.At this time, a line of words will appear on the screen: WARNING!You've reached your email limit.Over the next few days, you'll just have to wait for the constant stream of replies.Of course, these emails must be sent to the mailbox you specified, because the mailbox you originally sent the email to will no longer be enabled.No matter what the content of the reply is, even if it is just "you sent it to the wrong person", those who reply will invariably receive a more targeted email.However, very few people take the bait. After touching the hook lightly, they often don't bite the hook and don't let go.

Winston realized early on that these mass mailings, while staggering in quantity, lacked in quality.When you’ve sent thousands of pleas for help and received so few replies, it’s easy to become disheartened, as if the world is ignoring you.Maybe people have become more alert, maybe spam filters have become more effective.Human stupidity knew no bounds, so Winston suspected that the problem was still with the spam filters, rather than humans suddenly being able to tell right from wrong.Spam filters are like trawling the oceans, sweeping the ocean floor with nets, cornering small-scale fishing boats and choking out fishermen who fish for a living. You can't catch prey with a handful of sand, or a cat with a drum.Winston was well aware of this.But look at the rows of crazy kids sitting in front of the computers.They hooked their necks and hunched their backs, wrapped in the smoke they spit out, and threw countless mass emails into the cyberspace every day, which they called "carpet bombing".Winston thought it was a complete waste of time. Winston was not like them.He has given up on mail grabbers and indiscriminate bombers.Now, he spends more time on preliminary work, first screening and screening the targets, and then concentrating firepower to attack.He also stopped using crude, ungrammatical sentences.That ludicrous misspelling is often made to convey a message to the person reading the email: There is a rich idiot here, don't miss this opportunity.Those in their trade know that this crude format is for the greedy and the uninspired.This is the kind of person who starts snickering while figuring out how to steal money from what they consider "gullible Nigerians".And what Winston was looking for was a greedy man with a brain, or, to put it back, a greedy man with a brain.Therefore, the method he uses is more... classy, ​​which is a word he came up with after searching.Blind mass emailing is not his style.His method is a surgical strike, not a machine-gun-like sweep. Winston sees himself now as more of an assiduous student of anthropology, a man working to improve his craft, his pitch, his search tools.He consults business directories, annual reports, online brochures, news reports, and even that old standby, the online yellow pages.Once the goals are identified, the plan can be fine-tuned and action can be taken.By doing a few "I ask you answer" on Facebook, Winston can form a more accurate impression of the target - age, political position, religious belief, hobbies, and then do what he likes, gradually winning the other party's attention. trust. "As a Presbyterian..." "I share your appreciation for Arthur Conan Doyle's writing..." "As a huge fan of your Wedding Trivia blog..." "Dear Sir, I must tell You, that paper you posted online on South Carolina songbirds fascinated me. I too had long dreamed of going out in the wild to find a blue tit with a head of golden feathers...” A great deal of preparation must be done so that once the target is entangled, it cannot break free.And, once the target is hooked, it's up to the angler to play with them.He would slowly wind up the line, suppressing their initial resistance, relaxing when it was time to relax, and tightening when it was time to tighten.As a boy born and brought up in the city, Winston understood that some fish were to be caught with a net, some with a hook, and others with a spear, and all with clean motion.Of course, he does not fish with lines and hooks, but with words, with miracles to lure his targets.From this point of view, this kind of game is more like storytelling than a blood sport.Sometimes Winston feels more like a film and television producer or a film director, or a script writer, and the person playing the role is some fool who lives on the other side of the world, a person who acts purely for his own benefit. people. It could also be a woman. Women are rarely taken in, but not never.Isn't there a widow in Hong Kong who was cheated out of millions?This massive scam only made a splash when the damned guys at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission finally tracked down who was behind it and refused to accept bribes and prosecuted them instead.They actually returned the money to the old woman.What a bunch of idiots!It made Winston sad to think that everything that those people had paid for this huge sum of money was in vain.The do-gooders at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission don't appreciate what they're doing. Hunter, fisherman, entrepreneur, Nollywood film director.Winston sees himself in many characters, but never as a criminal.Criminals lack strategy.They use violent means to directly rob money and even kill people.And liars are just seducers.Winston didn't grab those fools' money, they gave it to him obediently.That's because their eyes were blinded by greed and spent by money.When they give you money, it cannot be said that you stole their money. Occasionally, Winston is warned on a chat site or forum and has to leave.Sometimes he sees announcements on electronic bulletin boards like "Oh, I'm here" or "Stay away, scammers," which means that someone has taken over the "territory," perhaps just across the street from him. The guy with the two chairs.But as a rule of thumb it should be avoided, although scammers sometimes fight for "a piece of fat", they call this "fool's war".Winston would avoid such fights.Not only is this practice unproductive, it interferes with the work at hand.All he had to do was concentrate on luring the target closer, then aim and stab it hard, then hold it firmly in his hand and squeeze until the last drop of blood was drained from the fool. Sometimes Winston would come across someone's resume online, with a detailed address and phone number on it.This information is especially useful when you need to get rid of fools and threaten them or their families.When the show is about to end, the idiots send emails crying, "Oh, you ruined me!" "Oh, you lied to me!" Sometimes they get tough and threaten to Going to the law - this hassle should not be underestimated.At this time, the other party's home address can come in handy.All you need to say to the idiot is "we know where you live" and attach a photo of the person's house from a google map search to silence the idiot.Even without this tactic, the danger of real legal action is almost non-existent.This kind of intimidation is like a noisy fly, which can only cause little annoyance at best.Anger, heartbreak, accusations, shock, emails from dupes get buried in inboxes. There is a real danger in Lagos that EFCC officials will act suddenly, claiming to "restore" Nigeria's reputation: they do everything possible to thwart the 419s who fight day and night, launch attacks with publicity stunts, conduct Massive manhunt.Winston had been arrested in such a raid before, so he later learned to fight guerrilla warfare between different Internet cafes, avoid staying up all night, and the first thing after entering an Internet cafe is to find out the location of the fastest exit channel . Winston was also a Yahoo boy at first, taking advantage of the preferential conditions of low night charges to stay up all night in Internet cafes, even though the Internet cafe door had already posted a "rest" sign and the door had already been bolted.He never minded the company of those big bosses who spend all night in Internet cafes.From time to time, they let out ambiguous laughter, masking their despair with feigned friendship.Burning cigarettes shimmered blindingly. (Winston guesses he might be the only non-smoker in Lagos.) There's also a never-ending slew of cheesy banter and a deadly obsession with the female body.Winston hadn't stayed up all night sharing with them real and fake stories of sexual conquest.He has his own business to do.As far as he was concerned, the other Yahoo boys' talk about how to get a girl from Victoria Island into bed was a waste of energy.Winston has big plans. He was no ordinary con man, a swindler, a carnival magician: he was a real connoisseur, a man who lived wisely and seized opportunities.Whenever Winston felt shaken, he used this thought to cheer himself up. Sometimes he felt that he should put in more effort to get close to those Yahoo boys, exchange experiences, and share each other's experiences.His first template, bought from a Yahoo kid, was a long letter of request written under the guise of General Abacha's widow, riddled with ridiculous grammatical errors and inconsistencies.But that was a beginning after all.After two hundred attempts, it finally paid off: an engineering student in Edinburgh wired a small sum.Although it was only a few thousand pounds, it was enough for him to continue. Now it seems like that happened a long time ago.Winston waved his hand and ordered another cup of tea.The Yahoo boys drink mineral water and beer.Winston's taste was different from theirs, and he only drank lemon tea with ginger. He wanted to sigh, but he held back and continued to browse through the profiles he had collected. A city of a million people, a city built on wetlands, stepping stones, and islands oozing with rich humidity, the worst place for a metropolis, and yet this is Lagos, a city that defies common sense.Winston longed for those streamlined cities.In those cities, operations run smoothly according to plan, rather than the endless waiting and deception of Lagos.The Yahoo boys are impatient, that's their problem, and it's the city's problem.Lagos is always on the move, always in its own way.This city deserves less hustle and more strategy.I spend a lot of energy on trivial things every day, such as haircuts and payments.It was as if every deal had to be reworked and every point of view debated in endless detail, almost insanely detailed.These things will consume one's energy and waste one's wealth.It would be great if this energy could be better utilized.If we keep our pace, we can conquer the whole world. But of course, the great thing about Lagos is that it never walks on pace.Winston knew that the city's weakness was also the source of its strength. We fell to the ground like raindrops.Why am I here? Winston dreamed of launching the biggest change in Nigeria, taking the 419 plan overseas to a new level.Not a sporadic act like now, employing some street gang or violent exile in America or Europe to terrorize tough fools, but a better, bigger, more complex project, a Group-style 419, with managers and presidents operating within legal boundaries, not outside the law.This is a 419 on a larger scale. Even the best Lagos hustlers are only scratching the surface, there's so much more to develop.Instead, he's lost in Lagos, imprisoned in the town of Festak, making up some ridiculous messages to send to ridiculous fools, and dreaming of bigger things. A dream will always be just a dream, and that's where the tragedy lies.The raid on Victoria Island had not only hit him, it had ruined his future.He was sentenced to probation and is still on probation.Because his passport was revoked, he was forced to make up a half-hearted excuse for not being able to attend his sister's graduation ceremony in the UK who was studying at university.In effect, he was already marked like Cain and could no longer be allowed to leave Nigeria.Without a visa, there is no hope of escape.The probation would eventually be lifted, or so he hoped, but the damage was already done.He is now carrying a criminal record, and the only way out is to smuggle into other countries as an ordinary asylum seeker, so that he will forever lose the opportunity to develop the 419 career on a truly international scale. Maybe he could find a sponsor, someone unrelated to him who would vouch for him.Maybe he'd be lucky enough to meet a pretty white girl and try to charm her enough to make her agree to marry him.Thinking of this, he laughed at himself. So, he is still in the town of Festak, sitting there and continuing to weave fairy tales: Sir, I sincerely apologize for disturbing your life.I'm looking for Henry Curtis, who graduated from Athabasca University and retired as a teacher.He is also a member in good standing of the Hounsfield Heights Amateur Carpentry Association, a subscriber to the Briar Hill Lighthouse community newspaper, husband to Helen, grandfather to twins...