If you use email, then you’re no doubt familiar with the Nigerian scam letter, otherwise known as the 419 scam (419 is a section of the Nigerian criminal code pertaining to fraud). You’ll receive an email saying that you or your family has come under a massive wealth, but you must relinquish some funds in order for processing of these funds to proceed forward.
But who are the people behind these scams? Known locally as “Yahoo Boys” because they prefer to use Yahoo! email accounts, Joshua Oyeniyi Aransiola, Ph.D., and Suraj Olalekan Asindemade, M.Sc in the Department of Sociology and Anthropolog at Obafemi Awolowo University (Ile–Ife, Nigeria) conducted interviews with these Nigerian scam artists and published a paper (abstract below) about their lives and proclivities:
A lot has been written on cybercrime and its prevention, but the problem has proved particularly resilient to remedial action. Desperate and vulnerable individuals in every continent continue to fall into its trap. Despite this, there is dearth of descriptive study that attempts to unravel the strategies employed by the perpetrators in Nigeria, as an important precondition for workable and reliable policy direction to address the problem. This article has filled this gap by using data from 40 cybercrime perpetrators selected with snowballing technique. The findings revealed that most of the cybercrime perpetrators in Nigeria are between the age of 22 and 29 years who were undergraduates and have distinctive lifestyles from other youths. Their strategies include collaboration with security agents and bank officials, local and international networking, and the use of voodoo that is, traditional supernatural power. It was clear that most perpetrators of cybercrime were involved in on-line dating and buying and selling with fake identity among others. The article discussed the need for reorientation of Nigerian youths in higher institutions, and various methods as guiding principles for potential victims. It recommended a complete reorganization of the Nigerian Police Force and Economic and Financial Crime Commission, as some of the officers in the institutions aid and abet cybercrime. It finally suggested a review of the Nigerian law guiding the operations of banking, poster agencies, and various speed post services in the country, as these are necessary preconditions to effectively combat the problem.
New Scientist has a brief post summarizing the paper, the best part of which is this:
Nigerian scammers make regular use of voodoo. As one Yahoo Boy put it: “The Voodoo thing exists for real, I have used it but I have stopped because of the fear of repercussion. With the aid of Voodoo the money comes faster. I have friends that still use it, they can collect money twice or thrice a week and it helps. I have a friend that uses a calabash filled with black substance; he hides it in his room and says incantations.
###
Related reading: this piece in TechCrunch, profiling Ibrahim Boakye, “a genius in the land of chronic unemployment.”
Books I Read 