Tracing Spammers and Criminal Liability?

All,
I recieved the following email earlier this evening to an email address that I mainly use for subscriptions I know I won't check or have any use for. While I am 99.999% sure it is some sort of spambot, it is still a bit unsettling to read. My question for the group is first, is there any way to track the email to report or take action against the sender, and second, is there any criminal liability for such a message. Usually spam messages are limited to extortionary claims to make you rich or that a bank has millions in your name. To me, this takes it a step further. Any advice, legal or otherwise, would be appreciated.

**Email message below**

Hello,


I am a Murder Agent am from Kuwait i've no other job than to kill to survive.you have been betrayed by some one very very close to you.he payed me to kill you.i don't know what you did to him and i don't care to know..but the person wants you dead and right now your life is in my hands..you have just few days left to live after that me and my men shall come for your life..my men are surrounding your house right now watching you and if you do anything stupid you shall receive a gun short from us.. but i can help you if you will pay me double of what he payed me..and i can also tell you who ordered us to kill you.but that will be after you have payed to save your life..your life is in your hands now.


PS: DO NOT TELL ANYBODY THIS


Killer

http://www.justice.gov/spam.htm

Thanks for the link wongbo. You'd think with the power of google this would pop up in my searches for how to deal with spam emails, but alas it did not. They have a section to file complaints, but in big letters at the top of the page, it states that if your life is threatened in any way, contact your local police department immediately. Guess i'll give them a call and continue on with the reporting process as it couldn't hurt, but what a pain. Thanks again for the link.

Interestingly enough, the more ridiculous these things are, the more profitable they are.

Lots of maths distilled to the written answer: We all get them: scam emails that claim to be able to make us millionaires overnight. But why are they so terribly unconvincing?

The maths: Why do Nigerian Scammers Say They are from Nigeria?

Quote: duckmankilla

My question for the group is first, is there any way to track the email to report or take action against the sender, and second, is there any criminal liability for such a message.

Sure, sue him in Nigerian Court.
Since you probably don't want to travel to Nigeria to do it, you could start by sending the filing fee through me.

I'm well aware that if they are outside of the US, there is little that anyone can do, but if the IP address were to lead to someone dumb enough to be based in America pulling this stunt, what would the punishments be?

I also handle appeals to the Nigerian Supreme court if you lose at a lower level court. And, YES, I do accept Paypal.

Quote: duckmankilla

I'm well aware that if they are outside of the US, there is little that anyone can do, but if the IP address were to lead to someone dumb enough to be based in America pulling this stunt, what would the punishments be?

Probably "We're investigating your case sir" or maybe even an email to his ISP after which it cuts his service.

Quote: P90

Probably "We're investigating your case sir" or maybe even an email to his ISP after which it cuts his service.

More likely it would be an audit from the IRS. Big Al, killing people on Valentines day is one thing, but
we want our share of the profits. And yes, bullets are an authorized business deduction.

Hmm, this got me thinking. Instead of buying a dog as traditional in cases of cyber-stalking, why don't the police offer a paid e-Protection iService smartPlan?

It will probably just lead back to some little-old-lady's unpatched Windows XP machine with a couple botnet malwares on it anyway.

As if the feds could actually do anything about spam.

I feel bad for the real Nigerian prince when he needs to get some cash. By then, nobody will believe him. Poor guy.

Quote:

It will probably just lead back to some little-old-lady's unpatched Windows XP machine with a couple botnet malwares on it anyway.

As if the feds could actually do anything about spam.

thats a big +1.

You should be able to view the raw message with its headers intact, although how you would go about doing that varies depending on how you access your email (Gmail's web interface/Outlook/Thunderbird/etc). In Thunderbird, you go into View > Message Source.

The headers should indicate the server from which the message originated. I know he said Kuwait, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Chances are the email came from a foreign land that Sarah Palin can see from her porch. If it originated outside the U.S., there's probably nothing you can do about it.

I think you should do something stupid and let them give you the short gun like they promised. It's gotta have some resale value at one of those gun shows.

Spam or not, the message contains a death threat.

Call the police.

Quote: Mosca

Interestingly enough, the more ridiculous these things are, the more profitable they are.

Lots of maths distilled to the written answer: We all get them: scam emails that claim to be able to make us millionaires overnight. But why are they so terribly unconvincing?

The maths: Why do Nigerian Scammers Say They are from Nigeria?

Reminds me, I was watching some investigative show on a guy who was receiving packages for someone else -- (his Internet girlfriend in S. America who he had never met). She had him working out of his home shipping products for her. It was all a scam of some sort.

I've been getting some "phishing" emails for different banks. In my hotmail account they have the phishing option in addition to the junk button, so I've been forwarding them there instead of just junk.