Nobody is safe from being victimized by an email scam. Not even Desmond Mpilo Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Archbishop Emeritus of South Africa. A new fraudulent email claiming to be sent by the archbishop is currently invading email inboxes all over the world. The main objective of the scammers who composed and sent the email — to raise money for the archbishop’s organization.
Fraudulent email message
According to the fraudulent email, Archbishop Tutu is allegedly going through financial difficulty. The only solution he can think of to raise enough funds to save the future of his organization is to “humbly” ask for an urgent loan worth GBP1400 (R21000). He even promised to pay back the loan on February 2, 2009. To guarantee the loaners that they will be repaid, the person who originally composed the fraudulent message even attached a fake cheque on the fake email. Archbishop Tutu, of course, denied all claims that he has anything to do with the email message. According to the archbishop, he is not capable of writing such an awkwardly phrased letter.
Fake email address
The email address used in sending the fraudulent email is archbishopdt@mail2southafrica.com, the alleged email address of Archbishop Tutu. The said email address, however, is a fake. After all, the only institution that is allowed to seek donations and raise funds using Archbishop Tutu’s name is the Mpilo Ministries Trust. The Trust, according to the official statement issued by the archbishop, “handles fund raising through recognized institutions and would never make such public appeals for funds.”