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Huawei Executive Arrest Inspires Advance Fee Scams (sans.edu)
UnderAttack writes: Scammers are attempting to trick Chinese victims into sending thousands of dollars in order to secure the release of Chinese Huawei executive Meng who was arrested in Canada last week. The messages claim to originate from Ms. Meng and suggest that she found a corrupt guard who will let her go for a few thousand dollars. Of course, there will be riches for anybody who is willing to help (and more). The scam is reportedly targeting people via WeChat, which may have a higher success rate than more widely distributed scams.
One of the messages reads (translated): "Hello, I am MENG Wanzou. Currently, I have been detained by Canadian customs. I have limited use of my phone. Right now CIA is trying to get me into the hands of the US government. I bribed the guard of my room, and urgently need US$2000 to get out of here. Once I am out, I will reward you 200,000 shares of Huawei. I will be good on my word. if you are single, we can also discuss the important thing in life. The guard's name is David, the account number is 52836153836252, swift 55789034. I will be good on my word."
One of the messages reads (translated): "Hello, I am MENG Wanzou. Currently, I have been detained by Canadian customs. I have limited use of my phone. Right now CIA is trying to get me into the hands of the US government. I bribed the guard of my room, and urgently need US$2000 to get out of here. Once I am out, I will reward you 200,000 shares of Huawei. I will be good on my word. if you are single, we can also discuss the important thing in life. The guard's name is David, the account number is 52836153836252, swift 55789034. I will be good on my word."
I believe the difference is the element of greed in this type of scam. It's more pronounced in the classic Nigerian 419 scams but present in this one as well, the person gets scammed because they think they are going to get a huge payoff for often ethically questionable activity (funneling a bunch of Nigerian oil money out of their banks, bribing prison guards, etc.). I think people have a lot more sympathy for tech support or "your grandson is in jail" scams than ones where people are promised a huge payout for sending some money now because they think that greed was a large element of why the scam worked.
Enigma
My understanding is that they deliberately try to be far fetched. If it costs as much to send out one spam message as it does a million, so they don't want to bother with the ten people who just might be dumb enough to fall for it; they want to specifically target the one person who is definitely dumb enough to fall for it.
They're not trying to tip marks off, they're putting that in there as a selection measure so that only the most likely to actually go through with the scam reply.
I am genuinely curious about what she could have been referring to.
The translation in TFA didn't even get her name right (it is Meng Wenzhou). Google translate would have done a better job.
The questionable phrase in Chinese literally means "... also can discuss important life events", but it is ambiguous even in Chinese, and seems to have a sexual innuendo since it follows "if you are single ...", but could also mean help with "guanxi" connections to advance your career.
I did a quick image search, and I would definitely take help with professional connections over a roll in the sack.