Nigeria’s spam kings are back in the news, thanks to a sassy dissection of their racket by Chicago economist Steven D. Levitt in his new book “.” And why not? As Levitt points out, there something ridiculous about these scammers’ poorly crafted stories involving dead princes, trapped millions — and a giant payoff for any sucker  willing to wire money in advance.

Levitt and co-author Stephen J. Dubner air the theory that spammers choose deliberately awful syntax, so that only the most gullible people will reply. That way, the con artists don’t waste time trying to pry money out of intelligent skeptics. Levitt may be right. But as long as we’re trying to read the minds of these small-time hustlers, I’d like to go one step further.

What if the Nigerian scammers actually are the good guys? Read further in Forbes.