It's generically referred to as "Nigerian scam" but the better efforts make reference to whatever African instability is recently in the news. The last one I got, from Mrs Victoria Komo, (wife of "former opposition election candidate now in jail") used Mugabe-evicting-the-white-farmers in Zimbabwe as its hook.

Of course, I leapt at the opportunity and am now finally rolling in U.S. dollars.

W-O