Apparently, someone fell for the Nigerian spam scam. Supposedly:
According to statistics presented at the International Conference on Advance Fee (419) Frauds in New York on Sept. 17, roughly 1 percent of the millions of people who receive 419 e-mails and faxes are successfully scammed.
Annual losses to the scam in the United States total more than \$100 million, and law enforcement officials believe global losses may total over \$1.5 billion.