From Russia with Whaa?

It's been just over a month since I last saw my friend Sergei. (All names have been changed to protect the "innocent.") I met him while he was on a two year tour of duty working for my firm in the US. His two years were up last month, so he went back to Russia.

It was a nice surprise when he sent me an instant message this morning. I wasn't sure when I would ever speak to him again, so it was great to catch up and find out how things were going. After spending a few minutes talking about work and theatre, Sergei asked me if I would do him a favor. He asked if I would send an invitation to a friend of his in the US. I thought he meant a Lotus Notes invitation - Lotus Notes is our desktop client at work. When we have meetings or conference calls, we can send out electronic invitations through Lotus Notes and it inserts the event into the recipient's calendar. It would make sense that he would need me to do it because the Russian system and the US system aren't linked together. But no, he told me that he meant an actual, hard copy invitation to send through the mail.

Ok, well, I can spring for the $0.42, sure. I figured he must need it to arrive quickly and it probably takes a long time to arrive when sent from Russia. Sure Sergei, no problem, I'll do it. He thanked me several times, told me how indebted to me he was, and then emailed me the invitation to print and mail for him. This was the letter:

(My Company's Letterhead)

Dear Viktorya and Nataliya-

I would like to invite you to visit me in the USA any time in September – October 2008. You can stay in my apartment in Manhattan and I would be happy to spend some time with you in the city and advise on other great places to visit in the US.

I am looking forward to seeing you,

Ross

PS: I also would like to let you know and you may want to share this with the US Embassy in Moscow that I am a US citizen.

"Umm.... what the hell is this?" I asked him. He assured me that they wouldn't actually be staying with me, obviously. This was just a formality to get their visas. I asked him if this was legal and his response was, "Maybe. I'm not that familiar with your laws."

So yeah, I told him that it sounded like fraud or at the very least it was unethical. I told him I was sorry, but I couldn't help him. People have asked me for a lot of random things before, but this was the first request to smuggle a couple of Russian girls into the US.