>these original, truly Nigerian scams, were less sophisticated than the later Internet imitators, since targeting technical professionals isn't targeting the dumbest of the dumb.
On the contrary, the scam you describe look much more elaborated than current ones since they got your real peraonal info. Besides technical professionals seem like a great target for scams, since they likely have more money than the average and they are probably not as hard to scam as you might think, given that even a harvard professor fell victim to a 419er http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/03/31/harvard_prof_scams/
On the contrary, the scam you describe look much more elaborated than current ones since they got your real peraonal info. Besides technical professionals seem like a great target for scams, since they likely have more money than the average and they are probably not as hard to scam as you might think, given that even a harvard professor fell victim to a 419er http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/03/31/harvard_prof_scams/