It's not his personal cash. As the article says, they were promising him a lucrative business contract, so the cash most likely came from the coffers of the business where he works (or at least where he used to work).

Most of the reports of people getting scammed for big $$$$$ have gotten the money embezzling it. There are always reports of some grandma losing her retirement money, but they never lose that much money. Not like the Michigan law office bookkeeper who embezzled $2.1M of the firms cash.

That's gotta suck, finding out your business is bankrupt because an ASSociate lost all the cash to a 419 scam...