A former accountant has been left penniless after falling for a cruel email scam.

Michael Hobro, 51, was promised at least £1.5 million for looking after an £8 million trust fund for an orphan in the Ivory Coast.

But it was not until he had handed over £20,000 he realised the scheme was an elaborate hoax.

Now he is warning others not to be taken in.

Mr Hobro was desperate to raise some money after losing his job as a chartered accountant in Spain in the economic downturn following the September 11 attacks.

He had just moved to temporary accommodation in Seaford when he received an unsolicited email from a man in Abidjan in Ivory Coast.

It told how 24-year-old James Adams' father had been poisoned by rival cocoa traders, leaving him a trust fund he could access on his 30th birthday.

Mr Adams asked Mr Hobro to set up a bank account to hold the $11.5 million, or £8 million, for safe keeping due to political and economic turmoil in Ivory Coast.

The email said Mr Hobro's contact details had come from the Abidjan Chamber of Commerce.

Mr Hobro said: "It seemed very genuine. It's extremely embarrassing now but, because I had spent a lot of time working in Africa, this struck a chord with me.

"I wanted to help the lad, and the chance of raising about $2 million seemed too good to miss."

Mr Hobro spent a fortnight in Abidjan last December, where he met Mr Adams, as well as gang members purporting to be bankers and lawyers making the formal arrangements.

He spent a total of $30,000 on various fees and travel expenses.

He thought he had received his money in April but was then told he must open a new account with the Royal Bank of Canada and pay another $35,000 for a new drugs clearance certificate.

Before doing this, Mr Hobro went to the Isle of Man to set up an offshore account for part of his expected windfall.

But a financial adviser there immediately realised Mr Hobro had been the victim of a scam and advised him to contact Scotland Yard.

Detective Constable Bob Burke, of the Metropolitan Police's specialist crime fraud squad, told Mr Hobro he had fallen foul of a West African advance fee fraud.

Because all the meetings and transfers of money had taken place on foreign soil, there was nothing British authorities could do.

Mr Habro and his wife Sara had to abandon a deal to buy a new home in Seaford and have been living in a series of bed-and-breakfast hotels in West Sussex.

He had borrowed much of the money he lost in the scam and is slowly paying off his debts by taking on temporary work.