Sometimes it's worth doing a phone interview, as applicants with English as a second language may just have significantly worse written skills than spoken. As long as they can communicate verbally, then it might not be that relevant. I am assuming that you're all working at the same geographic location, thus making talking way more important than email.
This isn't really a 419. It sounds to me like the guy honestly wants Gabriel's help -- not as a sucker, but genuinely as a partner. He believes that Gabriel has skills that the bad guy can use to steal other people's money.
Of course, he might very well turn around and cut Gabriel out of his cut of the loot, but it looks at this stage like he wants a partner in crime.
One test I commonly use in interviews is to ask candidates to write a function to sum up an array of values. A scary volume of them can't manage it at all.
I am Tom Williams, Lead Engineer at Dubit Limited (we're here: http://dubitplatform.com), and I'm looking for many devs. We'll look at anyone from Uni graduates to people with years of experience, the only prerequisite is you've got to be a passionate coder! You'll get much kudos for community involvement though, even more so if it's on something exceptionally cool. In return we promise to get you a cake for your birthday, and as much scooter action as you can handle.
