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My friend Niko sent me a letter the other day:

I DONT HΑVE ANY TIME TO TALK. IVE BEEN FRΑMED FOR TREΑSON АND M ON THE RUN. I NEED YOU TO HELP ME ESCAPE BАCK TO POLAND. I DO HАVE MY PASSPORT, BUT IT WONT DO ME ANY GOOD ΑS THINGS STАND. I HAVE MΑDE ΑRRАNGEMENTS WITH АN AMBАSS DOR TO LEΑVE U.S. SOIL THROUGH А CARGO SHIP BOUND FOR ARGENTINIА. I WONT SAY ITS N ME АS THIS LETTER MAY BE INTERCEPTED АLONG THE WΑY. I NEED YOUR HELP TO GET TO THE EMBАSSY SAFELY. I HАVE TOLD YOU ENOUGH FOR YOU TO WORK OUT THE LOCΑTION WHERE I NEED YOU TO MEET ME TOMORROW АFTERNOON. ΑT THIS POINT, ΑNYTHING MORE I WRITE WILL ONLY MАKE IT E SIER FOR THE FBI TO TRACK ME DOWN. THEREFORE, I WILL COUNT ON YOUR SUPPORT АND АWAIT OUR MEETING IN THE DESIGNATED PLΑCE. I WILL BE WEΑRING Α CARNΑTION IN MY LΑPEL, AND CARRYING MY RECORD COLLECTION.

I can't figure out where he wants me to meet him, however. Can someone work it out?

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    $\begingroup$ Is Argentinia intentional? I mean, the typo? $\endgroup$
    – Sid
    Jul 13, 2017 at 17:19
  • $\begingroup$ The I has no significance to the solution of the puzzle. It was a typo, but not an intentional one. $\endgroup$
    – archaephyrryx
    Jul 13, 2017 at 20:44

1 Answer 1

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The first thing to notice is that

the letter As aren't all the Latin letter that we're familiar with. Many of them are either the Greek alpha or the Cyrillic (Russian) A instead.

Interpreting those as

ternary, with Greek being "1", Cyrillic being "2", and Latin being "0", then chunking them into groups of 3, ignoring extra letters, gives:

INFRONTK FTOWNFRLJ?, which I believe is supposed to be "IN FRONT OF TOWN".

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  • $\begingroup$ Perhaps this has an obvious answer that I'm missing, but out of curiosity, how'd you notice that? $\endgroup$
    – puzzledPig
    Jul 13, 2017 at 18:39
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    $\begingroup$ @puzzledPig Click edit on the question. You will see that even obvious words have red lines under them showing wrong spellings. Clearly, the A was different from the usual A. After that, it was all Deusovi. $\endgroup$
    – Sid
    Jul 13, 2017 at 18:47
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    $\begingroup$ @puzzledPig - Copy and paste it into your favorite word processor. (Or just click "edit".) You'll see that there are "misspelled word" marks underlining half of words. Those marks all end just before or start just after As, which means those should be inspected more. Copy-paste a few into the search bar and the results do not look to be in English for many of them. $\endgroup$
    – Deusovi ♦
    Jul 13, 2017 at 18:50
  • $\begingroup$ Ah, thank you, @Sid and @Deusovi! Good to know :) $\endgroup$
    – puzzledPig
    Jul 13, 2017 at 19:02
  • $\begingroup$ I am accepting this solution is correct, as it is the correct solution for the text as I wrote it. I realize that I probably messed up an A here or there, leading to the original message being garbled. I am going to update the post with the intended text, but this will still be the accepted solution. $\endgroup$
    – archaephyrryx
    Jul 13, 2017 at 19:47

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