Joseph Aboyomi won “Young Scammer of the Year” for his portrayal of the widow of the recently deceased King Moses Odiaka. The judges particularly praised his grit and determination, with a highly targeted Direct Mail campaign that reaped a 0.0001% conversion rate, and a return on investment of £300,000. As the widow of the recently deceased King Moses Odiaka, Aboyomi delighted critics. One said that “it was reminiscent of a young Julia Roberts, full of pathos and guile, a majestic performance,” while another said “Joseph captured that particularly unique combination of grief and neediness.”

“I can’t believe I’ve won Young Scammer of the Year,” beamed a tearful Joseph. “I’d like to thank my parents, who don’t know anything about this, and the good people in the Nigerian government who never do anything about scamming. Without them, none of this would have been possible.”

“Scam of the Year” went to Benny Ewome for his “Granny Sting”, which saw him scam more than twenty silver surfers in the UK within one week. In fact, at one point, Benny even had two grandmothers scamming the others for him, something that took even him by surprise:

“I didn’t think it would pay off,” said Ewome. “But after I’d cleared out their bank accounts, they set about clearing the bank accounts of other grannies. It was almost a pyramid scheme, I guess. Perhaps this will be the model for scamming in the future – who knows? I’ve made myself over half a million with this scam, and it could change the game forever, so yes, I’m pleased with the award. Now I just sit back and watch the money pour in.”

Judge Aiyegbeni Modu said that this year’s scammers were some of the best he’s ever seen, adding: “The quality is very high. Very high indeed. We have seen many great ways of using ebay, gumtree or local classifieds sites, and some brilliant e-mails. One of my favourites was a young man who managed to juggle about fifty different characters. In fact, he was the guy who convinced Billy Crystal to come and host the Scammies, and he’s wiped out his bank account too! A rising star, one might say.”

However, the most emotional moment of the night was reserved for Mrs Mollycoddled, of Norwich, who won “Lifetime Achievement Award” for what the judges call her “unswerving dedication to paying Nigerian scammers for anything and everything”. Mrs Mollycoddled, who is often used by first-time scammers for training purposes, has given up almost every spare penny she has to Nigerian scammers, and was unable to attend the awards ceremony due to not knowing about it. However, scammers have installed a webcam in Mrs Mollycoddled’s living room, and the 5,000-strong audience gave her a tearful, standing ovation as she pottered around making a cup of tea.

Bray resident Tamara Rugby-Swithens said that she was “almost taken in” by the fake Vorderman. “She came to the door and showed us these huge teeth and this big head of hair. I was really impressed and then she started trying to sell me insurance. Any kind of insurance, really. She didn’t mind which. But then I started to suspect something when her accent slipped, so I shut the door.”

Police have warned residents that the bogus Vorderman could strike at any time, and has already conned a number of people into buying insurance that doesn’t exist.

PC Armrest-Jones of the Maidenhead Police told the Daily Shame: “This is a real shame for the real Carol Vorderman – how is she expected to go about her business of hawking insurance and credit cards? If you suspect that you’re faced with a fake Carol Vorderman, though, there are ways of determining whether she’s real or not.

“First of all, ask her a maths question – and be prepared in advance with the answer. The real one will ace it – no problem. Secondly, count her teeth. The real one has 53 – a very high number – but it’s something that separates her from everyone else.”

Cardinal Stronzo di Natale of Genoa said that he was approached by the Pope’s henchman last week to play a part in the prepared scenario which would net the pontiff several thousand pounds in insurance claims.

Those claims would have been even greater if the woman who had attacked the Pope had carried out the scenario in full. “They asked me to attack him”, said Stronzo di Natale, “and then to run amok brandishing a burning staff. I would set fire to a few things – naturally, not expensive ones – and burgle the Vatican before running off into the night.”

“Of course”, admitted Stronzo di Natale, “I flat out refused. They tried to placate me by saying that I didn’t actually have to hurt him, but it’s against my religion. Catholicism, that is. It looks like they found some woman to do it for them.”

The Pope was unavailable for comment, but it appears that the Catholic Church’s financial woes are pushing him to even greater lengths to raise funds. Only last week, the Pope put some unwanted furniture on ebay, and is reportedly behind a number of e-mail scares sent out last week proclaiming that “God has left you a million pounds, give me your bank account number and sort code and we’ll send it to you.”

“The church is well strapped right now”, said Stronzo di Natale. “After my meeting with the Pope’s henchmen, they held me upside down and shook me for pennies. I only had a few euros on me, but they took them all the same.”

“I’m usually so careful”, said M’Bahh. “But it’s been such a good year, I’ve had scams going on all over the world. Unfortunately, it turns out that I was scamming myself for a large part of it, and I didn’t even realise.”

M’Bahh’s favourite scamming tactic is the ‘dead member of a royal family has left you a million pounds’ e-mail, although he admits that he has been getting a little bit lazy of late.

“You know, it’s all to easy to send out the dead royal family one. Some of my brothers are being much more inventive. They’re going to have a field day when they found out that I had fallen for my own scam!”

M’Bahh had e-mailed himself with information that he had been left $15,000,000.00 by a recently deceased Angolan general.

“I’m so good, I believed every word of it. So I started communicating with myself. Really, I send so many e-mails that I completely got lost in the thread of things. I must have exchanged about 30 or 40 e-mails with myself. I really should have twigged when I wrote ‘it’s really hot in here’ and ‘my Dog Flunkychops won’t eat his breakfast’. But I just skim over stuff usually.”

The crunch came when M’Bahh arranged a meeting with himself, and failed to turn up.

“It was at that point that I really should have worked it out. But I was left waiting at the airport with a card holding up my own name, and nobody turned up. I’m such a fool. I went home and wrote a very angry e-mail to myself accusing me of not taking the whole thing seriously, and reminded myself that my dying grandmother would seriously disapprove of me.”