> This happened in Glenwood, Pretoria
>
> A man (with a Nigerian accent) came over and offered his services as a
> painter to a lady putting petrol into her car and left his card.
> She said no but accepted his card out of kindness and got in the car.
>
> The man then got into a car driven by another gentleman.
> As the lady left the service station she saw the men following her at
> the same time.
> Almost immediately she started to feel dizzy and could not catch her
> breath.
> She tried to open the window and realized that the odour was on her
> hand -- the same hand that she had used to accept the card from the
> gentleman at the petrol station.
>
> She then noticed that the men were immediately behind her and she felt
> she needed to do something at that moment.
> She drove into the first driveway and began to hoot repeatedly to ask
> for help.
> The men drove away but the lady still felt pretty poorly for several
> minutes until she could finally catch her breath.
> Apparently there was a substance on the card that could have seriously
> injured / incapacitated her.
>
> This drug is called 'BURUNDANGA' and it is used by people who wish to
> incapacitate a victim in order to steal from or take advantage of
> them.
>
> This drug is four times more dangerous than the date-rape drug and is
> transferable on simple cards.
> So take heed and make sure you don't accept cards at any given time
> alone or from someone on the streets.
> This applies to those making house calls and slipping you a card when
> they offer their services.
>
> PLEASE SEND THIS E-MAIL TO ALERT EVERY PERSON YOU KNOW
>
> Burundanga is a drug made from the plant called either cacao sabanero
> or borrachero. It is used to drug unsuspecting tourists in order to
> rob them.
No time to look at it properly but something this potent must kill you if you keep it in your hand a few seconds longer. I think it is another wild story.
Burundanga Drug Warning
By David Emery, About.com Guide
Forwarded emails warn that criminals in the U.S. and Canada are using business cards impregnated with a potent street drug called burundanga (aka scopolamine) to incapacitate victims before attacking them.
Description: Email rumor
Circulating since: May 2008 Status: Mostly false
Analysis: Is there a drug called burundanga used by criminals in Latin America to incapacitate their victims? Yes.
Do news sources confirm that burundanga is being used to commit crimes in the United States and other countries outside Latin America? No, they do not.
The above story, circulating since 2008, is almost certainly a fabrication. Two details betray it as such:
The victim allegedly received a dose of the drug by simply touching a business card. (All sources agree that burundanga must be inhaled or ingested, or the subject must have prolonged topical contact with it, in order for it to have an effect.)
The victim allegedly detected a “strong odor” coming from the drug-laced card. (All sources agree that burundanga is odorless and tasteless.)
What is burundanga?
Burundanga is the street version of a pharmaceutical drug called scopolamine. It is made from the extracts of plants in the nightshade family such as henbane and jimson weed. It’s a deliriant, meaning it can induce symptoms of delirium such as disorientation, loss of memory, hallucinations, and stupor.
You can see why it would be popular with criminals.
In powdered form scopolamine can be easily mixed into food or drink, or blown directly into victims’ faces, forcing them to inhale it
So whilst a drug in use, it needs to be ingested to have any effect. The link shows examples of the circulating mails. And so we learn something new every day!
Afraid it is just another load of bull. The fact that the Nigerian touches the same card without ill effect should give it away. As should the fact that something potent enough to immobilise an adult simply by touching a secondary item, which at some point touched the substance, would make it the most powerful chemical substance on earth.
And if that’s not enough to convince you, it has already earned a mention on urbanlegends.com.
i have a serious pet hate for these kind of mails, and this one lady in our offices, sends these to me weekly, i research them, debunk them, and send it back to her, and yet she still sends them on. the latest was telling women that they can refuse to be arrested at night. truth is, if you resist arrest, you have a whole load of shit coming your way.
i do reply to all.
there was one where sent this mail, claiming some houseplant will kill you dead if ingest it. and i reserached it, and it was bollocks.
same with this arrest thing.
i allways research these mails before i send it on. it takes like 10 mins, as most of these are allready on hoax sites.
it pisses me off that people dont bother to think for a second, hey, is this true, before i send it to someone.
true, some of these mails seems pretty credulous, but for shit’s sakes, how bout getting off facebook for long enough to use google.
Yesterday I took the Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz story I read here, and used it to Replied To All on one of my old woo-woo Xtian mails. Everytime I see a story of a child dying because the parents are waiting for god to heal him , or any such atrocity I spread the word like a true woo-woo. Some always reply that it’s not the church they go to, or not their religion. That’s probably why they keep me on their lists too. It’s petty and childish, but it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.
my s/o’s mum is a proud forwarder of fear mongering mails.
i have prodded her to use snopes and hoaxslyer, but alas…
usually, i would reply to mails that with plenty expletives and general name-calling regarding their general lack of intelligence and the origins of their birth.
BUT
i cant exactly tell my boyfriend’s mum she’s a dumbass.
thus, i humour her, and go to snopes, copy and paste, add the link.
i have now taken to replying to all. so that her friends can maybe stop sending her this shit, and maybe, in turn, it will stop reaching me.
Indeed, through years of running a instant-forwarder disincentive program (namely, every wrong mail gets called out), my mailbox stays fairly clear these days.
I’m wildly unpopular on sending lists, I rather miss the rubbish in all honesty, I enjoy pointing out inconsistencies and starting petty arguments about the benefits of lemon juice vs traditional chemotherapy treatments for breastcancer… >:D
One of many unsung internet heroes who are almost entirely misunderstood. Contrary to popular belief, many trolls are actually quite intelligent. Their habitual attacks on forums is usually a result of their awareness of the pretentiousness and excessive self-importance of many forum enthusiasts. As much as people may hate trolls, they are highly effective - their actions bring much of the stupidity of other forum users out into the great wide open. Man, that troll really owned those dumb forum users who take themselves too damn seriously.
i think i’ve become a hoax mail troll. or just a troll in general.