WASHINGTON: A new spam campaign claiming to come from a hit man is cropping up in e-mail boxes across the United States with recipients ordered to fork out thousands of dollars or face death.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is urging people not to respond to the e-mail, which first surfaced in December and is thought to originate from overseas.
The e-mail claims that the sender is a hit man hired to kill the recipient and that the contract on that person's life will be cancelled if a large sum of money is paid.
The message warns recipients not to contact authorities.
One person who responded to the e-mail received another message containing his work address, marital status and daughter's name, the FBI said.
It added that a new twist on the scam involves e-mails now purporting to be from the FBI office in London and claiming that someone recently arrested for several murders in the US and Britain was carrying information identifying the recipient as the next victim.
The e-mail calls on the recipient to respond to the e-mail to help assist in the investigation.
The FBI is urging people not to respond to the e-mails as doing so could compromise their identities and open them to identity theft.
