Going undercover in the Nigerian email scam

For years now, I have been getting emails from people posing as friendly (and often illiterate) Nigerian lawyers. Its always some sort of a scam thrown together in pseudo-cerebral English. They apologize for contacting me via email, they tell me about some American that has died whose last name is also Wiseman. They invite me to enter into a "deal" with them where they transfer the money to my account if I just offer my honest cooperation. Just to give you a sample, here is a typical email below:

Attn:Dear Wiseman I am Barrister peter c ibeh personal attorney to Late Mr.Ron Wiseman ,a national of your country, who used to work with Shell Development Companyhere in Nigeria herein after shall be referred to me as my client. On the 21st of April 2003, my client, his wife and their two children were involved in a ghastly motor accident along Warri- Sagbama Express Road. fortunately, all occupants of the vehicle lost their lives as the vehicle caught fire after the crash. Since then I have made several inquiries to your embassy to locate any of my clients extendedrelatives this has also proved unsuccessful. After these several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to track his last name over the Internet, to locateanymember of his family hence I contacted you. My purpose of contacting you is to assist in repatriating the money and property left behind by my client prior to his death before they getconfiscated or declared unserviceable by the bank where this huge deposits were lodged particularly, the BANK where the deceased had an account valued at about US$15.5 Million dollars.The bank had issued me a notice to provide the next of kin or have the account Confiscated within the next ten official working days. Since I havebeen unsuccessful in locating the relatives for over 2 years now I seek your consent to present you as the next of kin to the deceased since you havethe same last name/surname so that the proceeds of this account valued at US$15.5million dollars can be paid to you and then we can share the money.I have all the necessary official and legal documents that canbe used to back up the claim we may make. All I require is your honestco-operation to enable us in seeing this deal through. email me at barrpetercibeh_111@yahoo.com

I particularly like this one where (I assume) he mistakenly wrote "fortunately" instead of unfortunately when telling me that all occupants of the car died in the "ghastly" accident. I sometimes get a kick out of imagining a bunch of Nigerians sitting around a computer with a thesaurus, looking up words like ghastly.

Even though I laugh at most of them, they really kind of piss me off. They clog up my email for one thing, not to mention the thousands of other people that receive these. But I also have to remember that they are quite obviously trying to steal my money.

So, by now my curiosity has gotten the best of me. I have decided to make up a fake email address and am going to play along with one of them for a while. To be honest, I am a little nervous to try this. What if these are Nigerians, but are working out of South Africa or even Durban. What if they find out who I really am and I find myself at the mercy of the Nigerian mafia? All of this is not likely. But, like many other South Africans, I have a healthy fear of Nigerians (they are responsible for a lot of the violent crime here). Still, I think if I set it up right, there will be no way to trace it back to me. I'll set this up over the next few days, and let you know how it turns out. I have a feeling their email addresses dont even work, but we'll see.