- 23 hours ago
West Africa now accounts for 30% of all cybercrimes in Africa, costing victims billions globally. We explore the world of internet fraudsters known in Nigeria as "Yahoo boys" and in Ghana as "Sakawa Boys."
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00:05Every scam has two parts, a convincing lie and someone who thinks that it's legit.
00:11Right, and the tension there is who's at fault. It's clearly not an easy endeavour.
00:20Welcome to the show on Online Frosters. Well, just recently we discussed how people have been
00:25scammed in the name of job opportunities abroad, eventually leading to human trafficking and
00:31exploitation. So today, let's look at the Yahoo schemes, one of the most notorious scams of our
00:36time, also known as 419. My name is Fatu Eli Kamuloshi. And I'm Rachel Ndwati. And I was
00:42wondering, you know, Fatu talked about 419 last time. Yes. And I was wondering, what is this?
00:48What did you find? So I looked it up and I realised that it has something to do with the
00:53Nigerian,
00:54you know, criminal court. It was derived in those times when, you know, Nigerians used to use
00:59scamming as a way to be fraudulent and also all these things. It's actually a felony, you know,
01:06that prohibits using deceitful means to induce people into giving you money or property. And
01:12it's actually punishable by seven years, by up to seven years in prison, depending on the gravity
01:16of the act. I mean, I don't know if you know this because, well, you're from East Africa,
01:22but for those of us from West Africa, we were watching a lot of Nigerian movies. Nigerians
01:26actually did a whole movie on 419. It's called 419 Master. I better watch it. Yes. I better
01:32watch it. I remember the song is something like, I'll go chop your dollar. I'll go chop your dollar,
01:39disappear. You know, so you be the, you be the muumuu. I be the master. You be the loser.
01:44I've heard the song. It glorifies, yeah, it glorifies the scamming industry in Nigeria.
01:49Yeah, the whole scamming scheme. But that's so interesting. I mean, we grew up watching
01:52Nigerian films and we saw, you know, songs about this as well. Yes. But you know, Nigeria
01:56is very interesting. That is why we want to know, have you been scammed before Victor went
02:02into the streets of Nigeria to find out? I've been scammed in three ways. So the first one
02:08is on WhatsApp. How it happened was like, 2K to get 5K. So I actually tried 5K to get 10K.
02:17And when I sent the 5K, the person was like, I should send another 2K. So you'll be able
02:23to help me process it. I foolishly sent it. Then that's how my 7,000 euro went.
02:28But I have a friend that he was scammed. Yeah, he, he, he bought like data from one guy online.
02:36When he sent the money, the guy called him back that he won't be able to do that exact amount
02:40that is too small, that he should send another one. The guy sent again. So it was like the
02:46third time that he was not like, you know, told me another guy, they are scamming. He said
02:50it's a lie. It can't be possible. So he tried calling the guy and the guy didn't pick again.
02:55So that's how his money and everything went. So, you know, you see something, you pay for it.
03:00And after payments, the person goes to you, you know, I reported the accounts, you know,
03:06because I did it via transaction. I reported the accounts. And after some time, I didn't hear
03:12anything. I just had to let it go. I was chatting with someone. So I just said,
03:15let me quickly check something and just come back to WhatsApp. Then I just see my WhatsApp account
03:20has been spammed. I didn't know what was happening. Although I shared my link to some of my friends,
03:26to share some posts, like I lost my contact. So then when I changed my phone, you know,
03:31I was able to recover it back. Oh my days. Things happen, you know, you know,
03:36they happen on WhatsApp, on Instagram, but social media was just recently.
03:39Yeah, it goes way back to, you know, Yahoo days. Yeah, Yahoo days. You know, back then we were all
03:46using Yahoo account. There was Gmail. I don't know if it existed at the time, but Yahoo was the thing.
03:51Yeah. I mean, in Nigeria, I think it was mostly email. In Kenya, we had M-Pesa way
03:56back. Ah, way back. You know, way back. M-Pesa comes from way back. So we used to see, yeah,
04:00this mobile money apps being used to extort people. And in Kenya, we have this prison that's
04:06called Committee Maximum Prison. And in this prison, people are really notorious to conducting scams.
04:12They even collaborate with the prison warders. But how do they do it? Well, I mean, you know,
04:16in prison, there's always the people who have and they have not. So the people who are more,
04:21you know, they've stayed there, they know the system, then they're able to,
04:25you know, extort. And they even get like internet, mobile money as well.
04:28So you see now, it takes various forms. Because I remember back in the day,
04:32when these people would send emails, you know, posing as an old man who,
04:36a wealthy old man who apparently needs someone to inherit their wealth. And I'm just there wondering,
04:43how is it possible that out of the lot, I'm this lucky person who is going to be the inheritor
04:48of this particular wealth. And a lot of people fell for these scams. So it just started as,
04:53you know, these random emails that grew up and became this huge global system of fraudsters.
04:59Yeah. And people have gone to prison for this, because we're talking about a very pragmatic
05:04and a systematic system here. And you know, sometimes you're even just chilling,
05:08minding your own business. And then you're told, yeah, you get an email, you get an email in your
05:13room, just like Samsung does in this video. While millions of people sleep through the night,
05:18somewhere in the world, a message is quietly written. This morning, I received one of those messages,
05:25an email claiming to be from a Nigerian prince, a stranger offering millions of dollars, in exchange
05:33for a little app moving money out of the country. So I started asking myself, how does a message like
05:40this actually convince people? This is my own fictional prince, Samson, the Nigerian prince. It's a
05:47mock-up created with AI. And to become a Nigerian prince, you really need only three things.
05:55A face, a title, and of course, a story that people might believe. Most scam messages follow a
06:03similar pattern, a dramatic story about money trapped in a foreign account, and a stranger who
06:10needs your help to move it. After you received the email and you respond, you are already stepping into
06:17the trap. Another common tactic is introducing additional characters, a supposed lawyer, and a bank
06:24official. But these characters are often part of the same story, just to scam you. The same prince is
06:33acting as the lawyer, and at the same time is also acting as a bank official. Eventually, the story reaches
06:42a turning point. The money is ready to be transferred. But suddenly, a problem appears. Taxes, processing fees,
06:52or legal documents that require payments. And that is when victims are asked to send money.
07:01Understanding these scams may be the first step to avoiding them.
07:05That's so interesting, you know. Yeah. That's really creative. And I'm also wondering, you know,
07:10how does a scammer think? Because these people are very intelligent. And it doesn't mean that you
07:14lack intelligence when you're scammed or you fall prey to scamming. Yeah. We have to be very fair to
07:19people. Because if you fall a victim here, for example, the first thing people say is, how did it happen?
07:25First of all, if someone poses as a prince, who does not like a prince?
07:28You know, especially in Nigeria, we have this, you know, we know that there's princes. We know that
07:33they have princes. There's royalty, you know. And we've seen this deception. We've seen people
07:38claiming that they're from the royal family and trying to scam you. So it's playing with people's
07:42emotion. Because if that person poses as a prince and says, well, they have so and so wealth that
07:47they want to, for example, share with you. But first, you need to, you know, pay for the transaction fee.
07:52Someone might easily fall for that. Someone who doesn't know the strategy that we are talking about here.
07:58But someone who will sit there and say, well, that's good for you because you are gold diggers.
08:01Ah, who doesn't love gold?
08:03Who doesn't love gold?
08:05And the thing is, the thing is the shape that it forms, you know, sometimes they're even a prince
08:09who wants to make you fall in love with them.
08:12I mean, they come in various forms. And since we're talking about Yahoo in Nigeria,
08:16let's also go to Ghana now and explore the Sakawa.
08:18Because they also have a similar undertaking that is focused on romance camps. But this time,
08:24it goes even deeper and a lot more darker.
08:27Yes, let's see.
08:30Hey, Rachel and Fatu. Now, what if I told you ladies that you probably might be under a hex right
08:37now?
08:38You're thinking, me? Hexed? Not possible. But have you heard about the word Sakawa?
08:44What does internet fraud and black magic have to do with each other?
08:48If you're probably thinking nothing, well, sorry to break it to you, but you're wrong.
08:54Sakawa is portrayed on social media as a way for young people, some of them, to get out of poverty,
09:00to get a better life, and for the practitioners to be able to pop bottles in the club.
09:06On one level, it is internet fraud using fake profiles, business, and romance scams.
09:13On another level, it feeds off frustration with unemployment, inequality,
09:20in the sense that the system is stuck against young people.
09:25Scammers typically target people abroad using fake profiles, emotional manipulation,
09:31and deceptive offers in a bid to extract money from them.
09:44In many ways, Sakawa is like cybercrime. The main difference is the use of black magic.
09:51Some of the practitioners believe that that would help them increase the chances
09:56of scoring with their victims. And it's probably worse than what I just demonstrated.
10:01But there's no evidence that magic makes any difference.
10:07This is the context in which Sakawa is often discussed. Many young people, however, are indifferent,
10:15or at worst, sympathetic to the practice. Their biggest question remains, where are the jobs?
10:21Lately, however, law enforcement has been pushing back. There has been long prison sentences and arrests
10:28of offenders in Ghana and other West African countries.
10:31So perhaps it is time to ask, what is driving young people into this practice?
10:37And what needs to change to make it less attractive?
10:41That's deep. It's a lot. That's, that's deep.
10:44You know, you know, I was afraid. Wait, you were so scared.
10:48I was a bit, you know, because like in East Africa, we don't have this, but I've watched the West
10:55African
10:55movies. And when I was a child, I was always afraid of, you know, Nigerian,
10:59Ghanaian feels because they always had this. So dark.
11:02So unpack that for me, please.
11:05Yeah, I mean, this is very interesting there. The use of traditional beliefs to boost their chances.
11:09Very interesting. I mean, when we look at the issue of Sakawa and how they're talking about,
11:13I mean, it's mostly romance scams, you know, where someone is sitting somewhere in Ghana,
11:17for example, and scamming someone overseas mostly, you know, imagine getting the dollars
11:22or the pounds over. That's a lot of money.
11:25That's a lot.
11:25So you first have to pose, you know, as this attractive woman and most times a man pretending
11:30to be a woman, you know, and they build this emotional connection, hack into these emotions
11:34until you now start trusting them. And in the process, they now, you know,
11:38start complaining about maybe medical bills. Someone in the family needs assistance.
11:42But do they scam people, do they scam people in Ghana particularly, or do they scam people also
11:49like outside of Ghana?
11:51It's around the world, actually. It's around the world. And I remember DW did this documentary
11:55on Sakawa. And one of the Sakawa boys was saying that, well, he's very happy to be scamming,
12:02you know, Western women because colonialists came into our countries.
12:06Yeah, taking back our resources. So this is a form of reparation and claiming back what belongs to us.
12:13So they justify it.
12:14Yeah. So imagine, you know, having some sort of justification for what's being done there.
12:19But of course, that's just one aspect of it. It's important to also understand what people think
12:23about these scams as well.
12:25Stars. Yahoo boys. We've all heard about them. I feel it's a bad thing. I'm not encouraging them,
12:31but it's a good thing. Because they tend to help the economy in Nigeria as well. Because in clubs,
12:37money circulates through clubs and it goes to society. Nigeria is what it is, you know, so
12:42I don't actually think I blame anybody who is into the internet fraud or anything like that.
12:47There is no work. They feel like they just go towards that way and so that for them to enrich
12:53themselves.
12:53It's very interesting. It's a full-time job.
12:55I mean, in Africa, people don't usually question success.
12:59No. It is often celebrated. So it doesn't matter where this money comes from,
13:02as long as the family is happy, people around you are happy and life is good. Everyone is happy
13:08and enjoying themselves. I remember when, you know, I moved to the West and people were asking
13:13about certain things. What job does this person do? I was wondering, you don't ask that in Africa.
13:20Like, no one cares. You don't ask about people's jobs.
13:23No one cares. I think that's very similar because in Uganda, we had something called
13:27Modus Operandi, Operation Modus Operandi. So this operation was really filled with, you know,
13:33men who come along. They put themselves on a dating app. You download the dating app thinking,
13:38ah, you want to look for love. But you know what? The person there just wants to exploit you. They
13:43love bomb you like crazy.
13:44Look at that.
13:45And then for weeks, after a few weeks, they're like, yeah, let's get married.
13:50Would the marriage happen?
13:51Yes. But here's where it got interesting. Like after the marriage happens, this guy then starts
13:56extorting you, extorting you, extorting you. And we can clearly see it like the nature of this,
14:01you know, Yahoo boys or the Modus Operandi people, the way they are, you know, they come to you
14:06very charismatic, very charming. And they talk to you and they tell you, you know,
14:10if you're looking for love, come to me. But I wonder whether they also sleep at night,
14:15you know, because...
14:16That's the thing, they don't sleep at night. We've got someone saying that it's a 24-7 job for them.
14:21But you know, in the sense of the guilt, you know, because, you know, if you're extorting people,
14:26you really know you're taking advantage of them. Do you really sleep at night?
14:30So it's a full-time job. And some people, in fact, learn it as a skill.
14:38That's when I dropped out of school due to
14:46my available forms to finance the school. My dad was very, very ill. He had stroke
14:54and then diabetes, then the BP. Everything was just there. I had a couple of friends. We grew
15:02together. We were talking. I saw changes in them, you know. Like, I know that, yes, they are doing
15:08the street work, you know. I spoke to them. They were like, okay, if I'm ready, I'll be their guy.
15:15They will pull me through. What I do, my kind of work I do, is dating. And I'm a lady.
15:22I'm not a,
15:23I'm not a real lady. I'm just a fiction lady. There are some men who are there just to do
15:31their
15:32rubbish and all that. So those are the people I know that, yeah, I deal with. I don't deal with
15:37all these old people, like pensioners and stuff like that. I don't go after those people. I go after
15:45a man I know that wants to flat, dig it. So I don't give a f**k about how they feel.
15:52As a
15:52Yauga, you need, you need to be online two, four, seven. Every day, every minute, every second,
15:59every hour counts. My biggest fear. Nobody wants to go to jail, regardless of what we are doing. I don't
16:05have a choice.
16:06I have tried. Where I was working was sold. If not, there would be my backup plan, yeah? I know
16:15they asked for much.
16:17One million dollars. One, just one. I'm okay. If my dad is in front of me right now, and you
16:26know what I'm doing,
16:28like right now, I'm sitting face to face like this. Of course, my dad will feel very bad now. No
16:36father
16:36will be happy or what he's doing when he knows he's bad. My dad is retired. Ex-police. Once the
16:43system
16:44is better, life is easy. If everything is going fine, I wouldn't be doing this s**t. I'll work for my
16:53money.
16:54I'm not lazy. It's interesting. Who doesn't want one million dollars?
16:59Everyone wants one million dollars, by the way. I wish it were that easy, though.
17:02But the thing is, he says, I don't ask for that much, for that much. And then he ends up
17:07saying
17:07one million dollars, guys. I just don't know where this kind of cognitive rationalization stems from.
17:14There's this sort of dissonance that steeps so deeply. And I think one has to understand it fully,
17:21because I don't know at what level does this kind of disconnect with one's moral conscience
17:28steep in. And then it goes far too deep that whatever the person does is seen as justifiable,
17:34because he's saying that he does not scam anyone. He scams men who are online and flirting with women.
17:40Sounds a bit like gaslighting to me because it's like trying to prove that somebody did something
17:44when they actually didn't do it. But that's the thing, because scam or ham does not discriminate.
17:49It does not matter if the person is online and does not have much to do with their time. It
17:53does not
17:54matter if it's an old person who has money that they probably need to share with people because
17:58they don't have anyone to inherit them. Or somebody who's actually, or somebody who's actually going
18:02through a lot to earn that money. But now we have to come to the point of the victims and
18:06stop with
18:07the whole victim shaming and come back to, you know, talking about how people can deal with this
18:12issue. And, you know, Julius in Uganda went into the depths of Uganda to understand how victims are
18:19coping with this issue. Have a look. Daniel Leonard Turiasingura borrowed and invested in cryptocurrency
18:26with high hopes. I saw myself driving, having martians in every city of Uganda. Daniel lost over $3,500
18:36to one coin, a fake cryptocurrency linked to Ruja Ignatova, a Bulgarian-born fugitive with German
18:43citizenship. I invested half personal savings and also had three goods to sell. So I told my dad
18:51that he could actually invest all his life savings. Ruja Ignatova is among the world's most wanted
18:58fugitives. She is accused of defrauding victims of more than $4 billion globally, including Ugandans.
19:05Police in Kampala have also placed her on their wanted list. If Ruja is being looked for by the Republic
19:12of
19:12Germany, the United States, and is on Interpol's red list, he becomes a wanted person in all cooperating
19:23countries under the Interpol framework. Across the world, millions are drawn in by promises of
19:28quick and easy returns. Many are reached through social media. Shalom lost nearly $300 to a scam called
19:36USDT Invest. They're going to let you test a little bit of the money. You understand? And then when you
19:45test,
19:45you get trapped, but you want to have more because it's sweet. Today, she supports Daniel in the fight
19:52against such scams, helping people around the world. There is this woman in particular in Mexico
20:00that was almost losing her money, her life savings into a certain crypto scam called Platt & Coin.
20:08So she saw me speak about it on YouTube, creating videos about it, and she was like, she reached out
20:14in my inbox,
20:15she was going to invest in $7,000. Shalom says many victims of online scams choose to remain silent.
20:24She laughed actually at me and she's like, how can you trust someone randomly you just met on the
20:29internet with money or something like that. Police say that speaking out is a key to breaking the cycle.
20:35Bring the thing out, mention it, so that we really tackle the problem.
20:41Daniel's door to quick money closed. Now he is opening a new one, focused not on making money, but on
20:48helping others keep theirs.
20:50I mean, it's a big deal. And you just heard the person say, you know, how they were being questioned.
20:55Why? How did you fall for that?
20:57But at the end of the day, I think it's more complicated than that.
21:01It really is.
21:02Yeah, people have needs. And depending on what point the person is, they can be very vulnerable.
21:08But if you don't also talk about it, like the official said, how can they even start investigating the matter?
21:12Yeah. I mean, even if you look at the psychological perspective behind that, especially, you know,
21:18somebody can be having a bad day that day. They're not maybe super conscious to know that I'm being scammed,
21:23and they just end up being falling vulnerable or preying onto these things.
21:28Let's also see what other countries are doing about this. Let's go back to Ghana because we
21:32mentioned Sakawa in the beginning, and it will be interesting to see what the authorities there are
21:36doing, but also what other people around the world are doing about that in case you haven't heard.
21:41If you haven't heard something wild today, here is one. Ghana just arrested over 1,200 people for
21:49faking online love. President John Mahama says he's sending romance scammers abroad for persecution,
21:55not just local jail time, no actual extradition. Internet is exploding right now over recent news
22:04from Germany where police arrested 11 Nigerians believed to be members of the notorious criminal
22:09gang known as Black Axe. This gang with a reported membership of around 30,000 worldwide is known globally
22:16for engaging in crimes like this, this, this, and this. In Germany, they focused mainly on online
22:23dating scams and money laundering. Black Axe is known to disguise their activities as charitable work
22:28through an organization known as the neo-black movement of Africa. They also have a significant
22:34influence on Nigerian politics and administration. Should Nigerians be blamed for the actions of a few
22:39people? Before we get into that Black Axe thing, obviously, let's unpack what Favre said about the
22:46crackdown by, you know, Ghanaian government to crack down on these scammers. And, you know,
22:50I was thinking and I was reading other laws in other places, for example, like Singapore,
22:54people get caned. You know, you're caned publicly with a with a cane and you're told, you know,
22:59you can't do this anymore. And I think it's about time that our governments also take this thing
23:03seriously, especially when it comes to scamming. Yeah. And, you know, the thing about it is something
23:08that happens in between cross borders, you know, it's like it's difficult to trace sometimes.
23:13There's no laws. If a scammer can even sit in, for example, Ghana and use a computer to scam someone
23:19in another country and then transfer the money in another country, then it means that...
23:23It's hard to track that. Yeah. There needs to be like collaborated efforts across nations,
23:28between institutions and governments to find a way, you know, to track down fraudsters, but also just
23:35illegal money. And of course, I know in the beginning we said that where we come from,
23:39it's not always easy to ask people what you do. I know sometimes it comes from a very good place
23:44because you don't know whether someone is doing a job that they're not so proud of. But I think,
23:49yeah, sometimes we just have to be on the lookout. And if you feel that something is wrong,
23:54just raise an alarm. Yeah. And also get away from the culture of not questioning authority,
23:58because I feel like in our cultures, we normally have this authority bias that we keep,
24:02you know, believing in. You can't question an authority. If somebody poses to you as a lawyer
24:06or as a, you know, judge, fake judge, fake politician, Prince, Prince, you're not even
24:11going to question whether this person is actually legit. So I think we need to, you know, there's
24:17information out there. There's the internet. You can always Google and you can also talk to your,
24:21you know, family and friends because scammers always tend to isolate people. Of course. And then when
24:25you feel that you're being scammed or in fact, when you're being defrauded, report it. Because who knows,
24:31maybe they're looking for this particular scammer somewhere. And these reports can really help
24:36establish the case. Maybe when the funds get, you know, recovered, you might even gain what you've
24:42lost back. Who knows? But if you don't report, how can you establish your case? So we have to be,
24:49you know, it's not easy. You cannot always tell that someone who is rich and popping bottles in the club
24:53is a scammer. No, that's not the case. But we're saying, if you are a victim and you feel you're
24:58being
24:58scammed, reported so that at least this can be easily traceable as well.
25:04Absolutely. Yeah. Anyway, on that note, before we leave you, on the 77%, we're always talking
25:10real stories, big issues, and the conversations shaping African youth.
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