The latest variety of scam-spam

You know them, we all get them--those e-mails written in a sort of elegantly polite and yet utterly fractured English, attempting to prey in equal measure on the reader's sympathy, naivete, and greed.

I receive several almost every day. Usually, they've been correctly identified by Yahoo e-mail as spam, go directly into the bulk folder, and are deleted.

But every now and then one appears with a new twist that captures my interest for a moment before it goes down the spamhole with its brethren. Here's one that seems to be pitched either to the international anti-American sensibility, or to those "progressives" in this country who have a yen to help a supposed confederate of Saddam:

Dear Sir,

Before I proceed, may I humbly introduce my self to your good self, My Name is Mrs. Hajia lilian, an Iraqi refugee, my husband was until recently, one of the personal aid to the president of Iraq who was formerly overthrown out of power by American Government . Prior to this last serious crisis that is still ravaging in my country, which recently led to misfortune of our government and my late husband
position as the personal aid to the president, we were able to inherited the sum of US11 million.The funds were originally gotten from my late husband proceeds.My late husband was able to safe guard the fund with a very good diplomatic & Lifting Company

I'm not familiar with diplomatic and Lifting Companies, but they sound like a fine idea for protecting the money of a late "aid" to the exceedingly unlate "president of Iraq who was formerly overthrown out of power" by that nasty old American Government .

And now Ms. lilian seems to have decided it might be a good idea to consider sending that inherited 11 million in American dollars (inherited, perhaps, by way of the ever-gracious UN oil-for-food program?) right back to the good old USA, among other nations:

I have decided to contact you because I am interested in investing in your country which is investment friendly. Please kindly guide and assist me in making the right investment since I am also interested in buying a residential property as I will be moving my family over there as soon as every thing regarding technical and logictics details is worked out and ascertained to our respective satisfaction.

How fascinating! The former aide to Saddam's family may be coming here--right to the belly of the beast, as it were.

And, amazingly enough, there just might be something in it for me, risk-free. Will wonders never cease?

In view of your participation,I am ready to give you a good negotiable percentage for your assistance,or better still commit it into viable Joint venture projects,be assured that you stand no risk of any kind as the funds belong to me and my only survived son. As soon as I get your consent, we will quickly move this fund to your country for investment . However, upon your acceptance to work as my partner, I am here with my only surviving son Mohammed, I strongly believe that associating with you to embark on this and other business ventures will derive a huge success here after, please include you private contact telephone number and private e-mail when replying.
Yours Sincerely.
Mrs Hajia lilian

In all seriousness, what I find puzzling is that someone, somewhere, must be taken in by this sort of thing, because otherwise the scammers/spammers wouldn't bother to waste the effort. So, who are these people who are responding to Ms. lilian's requests? And in what protected universe have they been hiding all these years, that they're not onto the game?