Chapter 2: The Set-Up

My letter worked.

Fred Aragon, the great Spanish attorney extraordinaire, specializing in banking, commercial, and –of course– inheritance, replied to me. Fred Aragon, otherwise known as Strider, has returned to regain his throne as the King of Gondor.

(Note: To catch up on Chapter 1, you can find it here — Chapter 1: The Big Inheritance)

This was Fred’s reply:

Dear Arlene Malchus,
Thank you for responding.  I am happy that you received my letter to you and have read and understood it well. So, this email is for further understanding of this Intestate inheritance. Please, any information and documentation I send to you is privileged and, because of nothing other than this privileged status, I ask you to respect me and keep my correspondences to yourself.  I place tremendous importance to this money.
As explained in my letter, I reached out to you because for awhile I have been in search for a family member of Malchus, for the reclaim of Joseph Malchus estate. But the 100% genealogy search for his true blood has been more than difficult for me.
In Spain, this estate is part of about $2.6 Billion held in financial companies, and not regained possession of. There has been no owner-directed activity on the money since Joseph’s demise. Take a look at the document with this email for more information.
It has been long since Joseph Malchus passed away, and the statute of limitations for recovering this money will expire soon if no one comes forward for it in accordance with stipulation of the law of my country. Joseph Malchus was my client many years before his death.
The amount is substantial, and I have spent a lot of time and money in the long search. But since there is just a little more time left before the deadline, my desire right now is to stop from further incurring costs. In essence, I want to suggest to you that between you and me, I believe that it will be wise for us to regain possession of this estate and make judicious use of it.
I cannot do this all by myself without presenting someone with family name, Malchus. The present situation of this estate doesn’t necessarily require you to be a blood member of Joseph Malchus. As I have with me the original papers of the transaction between Joseph Malchus and the financial company, I can present you to the company for recovery of the fund, within the very little number of days remaining now to present somebody before the period of time the company gave me expires and the money goes forever. Normally, I am supposed to go for a fee for tracking a benefactor down, but on the basis of my own interest, I want to quietly recover this estate with you and make good use of it on equal splitting basis, as long as you will not betray my effort after working for it to be released to you. The application for release will be made within the Spanish law of Intestate Succession.
To proceed with the application, I will connect you by surname as the next closest relative to Joseph Malchus (by 4th grade limit in the family tree) in the presentation I will make to the Company. But presentation cannot be carried out with the company without any document identifying you as Malchus. I want you to send any eligible form of identification to me via email. Your address (which I have) and personal contact phone number will be placed in my letter of presentation to the company. If they respond and approve the repossession, the money will be invested appropriately on the basis of equal, mutual interest. But if the application is rejected, there is no legal implication other than to leave the estate to be inherited by the government of my country.
With all my explanations, and as someone in this field of business, it does not mean that by applying for this money, the company will release it. It is a trial we can make and hope for positive outcome. My only advice to you is to keep it private within you until we have the estate in our possession. If we make the application now, it usually will take 7 to 10 days for us to conclude and the money becomes ours.
I want you to send the information I asked for after going through the document with this email, before the deadline runs out.
Regards,
Fred Aragon
www.fredaragon.podserver.info <=== (Note: This IS an actual website. More on this later)

Versendet mit Emailn.de – Freemail
* Unbegrenzt Speicherplatz
* Eigenes Online-Büro
* 24h besten Mailempfang
* Spamschutz, Adressbuch

I don’t know if Fred already had a template of that letter already completed or if he wrote that whole thing up just for me.

Either way, round 1 goes to me.

THE LETTER

A few things about his letter. It was accompanied by a certificate of deposit at financial institution called the “Golden Funds & Securities.” My google search for this bank came up empty. Surprise surprise.

Next, I noticed that $13,500,000 was deposited on June 25, 2007, the date of late Uncle Joseph’s untimely death.

Please disregard the fact that $13.5 million deposited in 2007 at 5% interest would now be worth over $24 million. Maybe Fred pocketed the $10M in interest and now drives a convertible Bentley around the Spanish countryside.

And please disregard the funds held in that Spanish bank were US dollars, not Euros, even though Joseph Malchus lived in Spain at the time of his demise.

Also please disregard Fred’s letter was sent from a German email. After all, he’s a very international lawyer.

Finally please disregard that Valazquez 20, Madrid, Spain isn’t a bank but a florist shop and pharmacy (from google maps).

Poor Fred. The genealogical search for the heirs of rich, dead, Joseph Malchus has been difficult for him. Not surprising. I also find the search for relatives of fictitious characters can be hard. I once tried searching for all the ancestor’s of the Little Mermaid. Other than King Triton the rest of that search was a total shit show.

So Uncle Joseph’s estate was worth $2.6 billion! Who knew an Indonesian muskrat ranch could be worth so much. Kind of makes me rethink my own career choice. But to be honest, if he was worth that much why are we only getting $13.5 million? He must have sent the rest to one-eyed Aunt Bobo. Rich bitch. She was always a diva, eye patch, fake leg and all.

I didn’t know there was a “statute of limitations” on these things. It has been 13 years and the distribution needs to be arranged “before the deadline runs out.” I best get on this quickly. The only thing he needs from me is an “eligible form of identification” and a phone number. No problem.

THE WEBSITE

I want to discuss a bit about Fred’s website (link is on his letter above). At first glance it seems legitimate. It has all the components of what you might expect from a typical Spanish attorney.

Except that its all in English.

But okay, it’s in English. Just for fun let’s see if I can find any parts of Fred’s website anywhere else on the web.

Google Search #1 (Under “About us”)
“The way we work is the result of the integration of several generations of lawyers, which provide a balanced view between experience and modernity, covering a wide variety of specialties in all fields of law and all aspects of professional work.”
Found on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/balcellsgroup/about/. Seems to be ripped from a legitimate Spanish law firm The Balcells Group.

Google Search #2 (Under “Homepage”)
“Our turnaround time is faster than a “Big 4″ firm because of our size and use of cutting-edge technologies. We are certified by the tax authorities and by the social security office to send all documents electronically, cutting down on time, costs, and the chance of papers getting lost.”
This one was ripped from a mergers & acquisitions firm found at https://www.datix.es/why-choose-datix-enterprise-s-l/

So our friend Fred may be a bad scammer, but he is the master of the cut and paste.

Everyone has a talent.

GAME PLAN

So let’s do this. Fred thinks he got a live one with me. What he really got was more than he can handle.

Let’s take the red pill, and see how far this rabbit hole goes. Ball is now in my court. I’ll come up with a response in the next chapter.