The idea is to make it easy for this guy to be arrested, not to make a habit of sending random people money.
I don't buy things advertised in spam, but I keep getting it anyway.
This sort of scam is like spam. It is easy to perpetrate the scam and hard to be penalized for it, so it isn't going to go away. Send a few emails and you have a chance of someone mailing you $2000 and probably not getting caught. Not a bad deal for the criminal.
