The large majority of us have, at some point in our lives, received scam emails from faraway strangers in desperate situations, promising large monetary rewards in return for our assistance thus appealing to both our mercy and greed. These emails have become so commonplace that they are more often than not directly deleted, as any quasi-savvy internet user is aware of the traps that lie behind these supposedly unique opportunities.

In Polyspam, however, Spanish photographer Cristina de Middel recovers these stories, reading each email and carefully analyzing the schemes hidden behind the text,...