Is there a Barry Kelly in Lagos, Nigeria who recently died from an
automobile accident?  He has a bank account at Diamond Bank in Lagos,
Nigeria.

Hi davidjet-ga 

You have asked an interesting question. The research for this question
even helped me to solve the query about an email, I received sometime
back, with subject "Business Proposal Confidential", stating about Mr.
Barry Kelly who has a Fixed Deposit for twelve calendar months, valued
at US$20,000,000.00,
(Twenty Million Dollars) etc., 

Actually this is spam mail asking for money, for a business
transaction. I could trace several copies of this email from different
senders.

A copy of email written by Obin Christopher, Bank Manager of Zenith
Bank, Lagos, Nigeria:
http://members.tripod.com/aspaaus/zenith.htm 

A copy of email written by Aggrey Odia, Bank Manager of ORIENT BANK
PLC, Lagos Branch:
http://www.virusbuster.hu/vlab/hoax/lagos.shtml

A message posted in a Discussion forum ( http://lists.samba.org ) by
Mr. William (Bill) Eke, Bank Manager of Orient Bank of Nigeria, Lagos
Branch:
http://lists.samba.org/pipermail/sidlc/2002-April/000201.html

It was a clear case of spamming. One such email received by Digital
Freedom Network (An organization which promotes and develops the use
of the Internet for human rights activism) was investigated. Please
find the details below in a case study published in their website.

"How to trace an e-mail, part 2: A case study by Robert Lebowitz,
Digital Freedom Network"
http://www.dfn.org/focus/internet/trace-email2.htm

Search Strategy:

Barry Kelly in Lagos:
://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=Barry+Kelly+in+Lagos

Hope this helps.

OnlinExperT-ga

As a follow up, the Nigerian Scam letter has been an ongoing con game
for many years, with the internet making it a much easier for the
scammers.  A great source of information on the scam can be found at

http://www.quatloos.com/scams/nigerian.htm 

also, the US State Department has issued warnings

http://travel.state.gov/tips_nigeria.html

They also have a gallery actual letters that have been receieved by
people and sent in.  Bottom line, this is a scam and can be a very
dangerous one at that.  There have been reports of people going to
Nigeria and being killed.  BEst advise, hit "Delete" and don't think
twice about it.  You will probably get the email again...and
again..and again...

Don't you love how the con men have moved with technology? :)

Ya I get those emails all the time. Search for "nigeria" in google
answers. There are 5 or 6 recent questions that seem to be the same
thing - a scam. And that is from the 20 questions mentioning nigeria.
I have seen the scam pulled with other countries mentioned in the
letters also.

It may be of interest that I am the B K in question alive and well in
SW UK and closely following this story. I visited Lagos 2 years ago
and suspect this scam arose as a result of one of my many meetings
there.
I believe that it was Zenith Bank who were supposedly involved and 
vast sums of money that no one other than myself and this bank
official new about.
Having been aware of these scams for a number of years it came as a
surprise to be named.
I suspect any visa applicant could find themselves in a similar
situation.