Happy National Estate Planning Awareness Week to those who celebrate. Remember that the first advice from any attorney to a client in Massachusetts or New York is “move out of Massachusetts [or New York] to a state that doesn’t have an estate tax”. Here’s a map from the Tax Foundation (people with money should move from the colored-in states to the grayed-out states, especially to those grayed-out states that also have no income tax, e.g., New Hampshire, Florida, Tennessee, Texas, etc.):
This post is about Mr. Evans Greenspun, a relative who lived in the United Kingdom and who was unable to spell “Evan” correctly. Evans left $200 million in a Cayman Islands bank but neglected to write a will. Here’s a hardcopy letter from attorney Elliot Barnes that I received this summer about my petroleum chemical engineer relative:
I expect to receive my 50 percent share of the funds imminently and will be following divorce plaintiff MacKenzie Scott Bezos’s example by donating much of it to Zohran Mamdani’s election campaign.
Separately, I’m wondering how the above scam can be profitable given that it required putting a stamp on an envelope (sadly I didn’t save the envelope so I can’t remember if it was actually mailed from the UK). “Attorney” isn’t a title that lawyers in the UK use, is it? “Solicitor”, perhaps, would be more credible? The letterhead street address in London doesn’t match precisely in Google Maps. A first name of “Evans” is likely to raise suspicion; wouldn’t an LLM have suggested changing it to “Evan”?
Discarding the envelope is unfortunate.
In addition to “Attorney”, I love “My name is Mr. Elliott Barnes.”
As Bart Simpson said, “What an odd thing to say”
Address, phone numbers, and Elliot Barnes match with a Ornithos Legal firm webpage ( https://www.ornithoslegal.com/about.html ). “06/16/2025” seems like an odd date format for someone from the UK to use. I guess he’s using a gmail account rather than his corporate account so that he doesn’t have to share with the other partners?
Maybe you can negotiate him down to an 80/20 split?!
I’d be tempted to ask for a down payment/deposit, just to prove it’s legit!
Philip, let us know how it goes. I too received similar letter. I googled, the deceased has newspaper necrolog and public record and law firm has public record. No idea if the deceased is real relative or not, but by the fact that I and my branch of family trashed relationships with conceted egocentric wealthy superachivers from other branches of my extended family, most of whom did not care to reproduce. it is possible. Do not really care about others money and did not reply, but now I think I could use some.
Someone from UK might use spellings like “specialising”. And an approach that is “grounded in professionalism” does not need to say so.
Grounded in professionalism. A UK company with a US toll-free number? And toll-free numbers are called freephone in the UK. A large street number is uncommon outside the US, and 71464 Edgware Road does not exist.
However, a quick search finds a “law” firm called “Ornithos International” that shares the same phone number as Mr Elliot Barnes, and is also based at 71464 Edgware Road. A look at the UK Gov company info does find a match: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/11658771, and its address is not 71464 Edgware Rd, but instead Suite 71, 464 Edgware Rd. Now this is a real address, and seems to coincide with a PO Box service. The filing history of the company shows several compulsory strike-offs (presumably by lack of documents), but is currently restored as a micro-company with net assets of 593 GBP and 0 employees in 2024 and 2023. The directory is Sheik Muhammad Muneer Beeharry, a 39-yr old national of Mauritius with occupation of “legal consultant”. It also appears he is running the company from Port Louis, Mauritius, and not from London.
Indeed, although the Edgware Road is the main road from London to the Holyhead-Anglesey ferry in Wales almost 250 miles NW, neither it nor any British road AFAIK has street numbers over 2700.
As you suggest, the address looks like MailBoxes Etc on the E side of the road at the corner of Orchardson St, half a block S of the new Aldi, terrible for parking.
A look on instagram (can’t link here) also shows that Dr Sheik Muhammad Muneer Beeharry has received a well-deserved Honorary Doctorate Award during the September 2024 Dubai Leadership Conference and Awards! There’s even a photo of him. The accompanying youtube video is touching, and clearly demonstrates his utmost professionalism in the legal profession:
> Please note that confidentiality is paramount
And you think publishing the entire email in your blog honors that scammer’s wishes? Shame on you Phil and your fake relatives. (His sig didn’t really match his name, did it? Even Trump’s isn’t that elaborate. That was the only way I could tell it wasn’t for realz.)
> A first name of “Evans” is likely to raise suspicion; wouldn’t an LLM have suggested changing it to “Evan”?
Maybe it’s his middle name like W. Edwards Deming, with Edwards being his mother’s maiden name like W. Averell Harriman and R. Buckminster Fuller