Our company has been in the internet business for some time and is domiciled in Switzerland - an irresistable attraction to these crooks. Several years ago, I received what must have been part of the tail end of the hand-written efforts. I was offended - it was written on plain paper, rather than a letterhead stolen from the Nigerian National Oil company. Well, it had a real Nigerian stamp on it so my kids were happy. Now it's all e-mail. People continue to lose a lot of money to this scam, believe it or not. (That's why it continues, obviously.) Some of them are overseas Nigerians according to news reports (one woman was taken for $145K - she thought she knew the ropes), but most are not. When they hook a real sucker, they'll go so far as to set up and attend meetings in hotels near airports etc - big money is involved. Also "small" money. There was an interview on TV with a guy who lost $35K but didn't blame his correspondents - in fact he felt sorry for them when they asked for yet more to make last minute bribes to release the cash pot - "They have a lot of problems with the authorities over there". There's a group in New Zealand that replies and asks them for verification - photos of themselves in ridiculous poses (shoe on head etc) but, as noted in this forum, these guys now have nasty pals in various countries, notably UK and USA, so I suggest not tangling with them.