Come now, how many of you have not received an e-mail sitting in your in-box saying either "You've Won!" or "My name is Mrs. Sani Abacha, widow to the late ruler of Nigeria..."

Well, the China Daily has done actually a rather fine bit of investigative reporting on who these people that seem to live in a Lagos suburb called Festac Town are that rip us all off globally to the tune of millions. Much more than that, actually; look at this quote from the article:

Now, however, a 3-year-old crackdown is yielding results, Nigerian authorities say. Nuhu Ribadu, head of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, says cash and assets worth more than US$700 million were recovered from suspects between May 2003 and June 2004. More than 500 suspects have been arrested, more than 100 cases are before the courts and 500 others are under investigation, he said.

There's also some discussion in the article about why Nigeria seems to have created the unique conditions for breeding these unscrupulous individuals:

Why Nigeria? There are many theories. The nation of 130 million, Africa's most populous, is well educated, and English, the lingua franca of the scam industry, is the official language. Nigeria bursts with talent, from former NBA star Hakeem Olajuwon to Nobel literature laureate Wole Soyinka.

But with World Bank studies showing a quarter of urban college graduates are unemployed, crime offers tempting career opportunities in drug dealing, immigrant trafficking, oil smuggling, and Internet fraud.

Elekwa, a chubby-faced 28-year-old, shows up in Festac Town driving a Lexus and telling how he was jobless for two years despite having a diploma in computer science.

His break came four years ago when the chief of a fraud gang saw him solve what seemed like "a complex computer problem" at a business centre in the southeastern city of Umuahia and lured him to Lagos.