According to the San Diego Sheriff Department CATCH Team there has been an email going around from an "unknown" person claiming to be a "hitman" hired to kill the recipiant of the email. This email tries to extord money in exchange for the reader's life. This email is not real. It is part of an on-going phishing scam that targets United States email addresses.

The CATCH team requests that receivers of this email do NOT make an Extortion crime report as these letters are coming from overseas sources.

The CATCH team suggests that if you believe you have received one of these emails, that you can check with www.snopes.com keyword "hitman" or "assassin". They have multiple versions of this scam posted. As well, you can forward this email to the Anti-Phishing Industry Group at www.antiphishing.org.