From the Annapolis paper, The Capital, “from our pages”:
100 years ago this week:
May 3, 1907: A local man gets a letter from Spain pleading for him to come to Madrid and “pay the necessary charges” to free the writer from prison. The writer says that when he’s out of prison he’ll share $250,000 he has in a trunk in an English train station.
Brilliant! 
Ah tradition… warms the cockles of yer heart, dunnit? and of course, like in ‘the good ol’ days’, no inmate in a prison would lie to you. Nooooo.
The standard “Nigerian 419” phishing scam has been around for a century or more. It was commonly called the “missing heir” con.
Edited to add: a little Googling reveals that one of the earliest versions was called the “Spanish Prisoner” scam.
Best wishes,
Jerry