Nigerian polyglots
Messages from bank workers or millionaires looking for someone to help them cash in huge sums of money are no longer capable of surprising us. Most of these emails are written in English, which has long been the language of international correspondence – it was unusual to ever see these kinds of messages written in other languages. However, that has changed, and now we are increasingly seeing letters like this written in Portuguese, French, Spanish and Russian as well as in Hebrew, Belorussian and Arabic.
Here is a letter about a win in an “Australian Lottery” held across several continents. It is written in Arabic and uses a standard scam: the recipient is told that he/she was randomly selected from among millions of people and has won a large sum of money. In order to claim the money, the user has to contact the scammers.
