Scam Baiters
Summary: Goren and Eames have to team up with a scam baiter to catch an online scammer whose scams end in murder! Bobby battles wits with a scam baiter! Alex goes undercover! Carver gets his day in court! And naturally: BA shippyness!
Rating: T for themes and a bit of language…maybe more as time goes on…
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters associated with Law and Order: VDO- I mean CI… Sadly Bobby, Alex, Deakins, and Carver do not belong to me- but I'm glad Dick Wolf lets me borrow them. I stole the concept from a website that baits 419 scammers and thought it would be really cool if Goren had to face off with one of these guys. So, without further adue, an original work, based off of a hilarious website. Please don't sue.
Chapter 2Alex walked briskly across the busy room at MCS holding a large box over her head in an I am woman! manner. "The laptop has arrived!" she said with a smile on her face. She bounded over to her desk and plopped down in her short chair and set the box down.
Almost instantly she attacked it with a key, and Bobby quickly said, "Don't do that! You could damage it."
"Relax, Sherlock. It's just fine."
Bobby stopped for a second. "I'm just cautious," he finally said.
"I know I know…" she ripped open the lid and pulled out a bunch of bubble wrap and ghost terds.
Bobby discreetly reached across the desk while Alex wasn't looking, grabbed some bubble wrap, and immediately began popping.
They were quite the sight to see: Alex was opening a box and lifting a laptop out of it like it was a Christmas present and Bobby was popping the bubble wrap like it was, well, a Christmas present. The other detectives were watching them across the room from the corner of their eye.
"Parents come in tonight, I got them to overnight this yesterday after I left Deakins office." She opened the top and hit the power button.
"Good, we'll have a chance to review all of this before they get here."
"Yep!" Alex was feeling very pleased with herself
Alex was sitting at her desk and Goren was leaning over her- they were looking through the e-mails on Sarah Cummings' laptop. Eames scrolled down to the bottom of the received e-mails.
"Look at this one- 3 months ago, it seems to be when she started contact with 'Sam'."
Church of Christ
Dear Sarah,
Do not be alarmed at receiving this e-mail, I received your name from a trusted friend at your church who recommended I contact you.
I am Father Samuel Engal of the Church of Christ in Nigeria, a small church in the heart of the country that seeks to help children get on the path of God.
As you are probably aware, it is a difficult task to fund such an operation and I am searching the world to find sweet generous souls who will help fund our church.
I am hereby begging for your help. We need books, bibles, and other tools of the Lord and cannot fund them on our own. We are asking for financial aid from every person we contact. This will help get our church on its feet to buy books and make repairs.
As you do this for me God will surely bless you.
Anticipating your urgent reply
Yours in Christ, Father Samuel Engal
Goren carefully re-read the letter.
"Look, here's her reply- oh for Christ's sake, get a chair!"
Dear Father Sam, I was glad to receive your letter. My name is Sarah Cummings from Fresno, CA and I would love to help your church in anyway I can. If you could send me your full contact information I can send you $9,000 via Western Union. All the best, Sarah
"It goes on like this, several e-mails a week, he has her send him her picture, big mistake sweetie sending him that."Alexthrew on a foreign accent"'I'm sorry but there is no Western Union near our church. My church has just enough funds for myself to travel to New York to complete the transaction in person to ensure that our church get the funds and they are not stolen or lost in transit as that is a very large amount of money.' Geeze, how can she believe this?"
"Can you check and see if a Samuel Engal flew into NYC from Nigeria?"
"Yah, you want to go meet the parents really quick while I check?"
"What?"
"They're over there with Deakins." She pointed at an old balding man with a taller gray-haired wife.
"Yah, sure. Meet me in Interview 1 when you're done."
"Will do." Alex picked up the phone as Bobby grabbed the laptop and headed towards Deakins and the parents.
"Hi, I'm Detective Goren," he said with an outstretched hand.
"I'm Jim Cummings, this is my wife Terry," responded the balding man as he shook Goren's hand.
"Please, come with me. My partner and I have a few questions we would like to ask you, and we'll tell you everything we know," he said motioning them towards an interview room.
Goren and the parents entered the Interview room and sat down.
"How did she die?" asked Mr. Cummings.
"She was found raped and strangled with a belt. It fits a pattern of assaults and murders in town that we are looking into."
"You mean this has happened to other girls as well?" asked Terry.
"We think they were all done by the same man, yes."
"How close are you to catching him?"
"We don't know. Does your daughter go to church?" he asked curiously.
"Not regularly, but sometimes. She's very sweet."
"Does she volunteer a lot?"
"Sometimes, but mostly she gives her allowance to charity."
"What kind of allowance are we talking about?"
"My husband and I are fairly well off, she gets around $1000 a month."
"We think somebody scammed her into coming to New York on the basis she would be donating money to charity."
The Cummings looked horrified. Terry buried her face in her husband's chest. Just then, Alex walked into the room.
"I'm Detective Goren's Partner, Detective Eames," she said shaking Jim's hand over his wife's head. "Thank you for sending us the laptop. It helped us get a big head start."
"Anything we can do to help," replied Mr. Cummings.
"In her e-mails we found a series of e-mails back and forth from a Father Samuel Engal and your daughter. He claims to be from a church in Nigeria asking for aid. He convinced her to fly to New York to meet him. We found no evidence that he ever flew from Nigeria. The Nigerian police are checking the system for his name, but it doesn't look hopeful. All of the contact information he gave your daughter was fake, except for a telephone number in Brooklyn." Bobby glanced at her.
"A local guy?" he said quietly. Alex nodded. "It would have to be."
Jim and Terry looked at them confused and anxiously. "So now you're back to where you started? Nothing?"
"We'll see," said Bobby. "Thank you so much for coming in," he said as he rose to his feet.
"We'll be in town for another week if there's anything we can do," said Jim.
"We may need you to stay longer. We'll be in touch," said Bobby.
The Cummings left the room and were escorted out by an officer.
Alex looked at him questioningly.
"Come with me," he said.
Alex followed him to her desk, where he sat down in her chair. He mumbled something about "short" and she whacked him on the head. He did some fast typing on Google and within seconds he had accessed a website Alex found very curious.
"419 Baiters?" she asked.
"Our guy was pretending to be a 419 scammer," said Bobby. "They offer money, or ask for it for a 'good' cause and scam people into giving them money and their personal information so they can scam them. Our guy scammed them into meeting him, then he raped them and murdered them- after he stole their money. But first he had to make sure they were female- he's definitely got a 'type'. Did SVU send over those files from the other vics?"
"Yah, they're here somewhere. Can I get to my desk?"
Bobby got up, but hunched over to continue browsing web sites. Alex located the files quickly and gave them to Bobby. "All young, attractive, female," he said quietly. He flipped through the files. And then, "There's no cell phone or e-mail records in these."
"I'll call SVU."
"You're awesome," he said.
"I know," she said smiling.
Note to all ya'll: If you are ever looking for a good time or information on 419 Scammers, my personal favorite website is www dot 419eater dot com.
And don't worry- things will get good with Bobby and Alex as soon as they get really good with the story. You haven't seen anything yet! Bwahaha!