poverty and hardship run rampant through
the modern world both in developed and
underdeveloped nations the grind to put
a roof over our head and food on the
table comes easily only to certain
privileged populations to those people
dealt an unfavorable hand at birth
they're forced to turn to alternative
means of income
since the birth of the internet there's
a new multi-billion dollar industry
staking its claim in the game
in 2020 online scammers milked over 304
million dollars from vulnerable
americans and that was just in romance
scams alone
while online scammers exist all over the
world for some reason
a good amount of them originate from
nigeria as the cartels are synonymous
with mexico
online scammers in nigeria go together
like bread and butter but why
and why are these online scammers
treated like rock stars the answer is
based on
many different factors nigeria is the
most populous country in africa and also
the continent's biggest economy however
as of 2019 roughly 40 percent of
nigerians live below the poverty line
making 360 us
dollars a year smartphone use is still
considered a luxury currently
only around 10 to 20 percent of the
population is using a smartphone those
equipped with the power of a
supercomputer in their
hand and the need for better sources of
income means that many nigerian men turn
to online scams as a means to support
their families
to mask themselves scammers will hide
their ip addresses and route their
connection through multiple different
servers
this makes them tough to track this is
in addition to using fake personas most
scammers really only have to hide from
the fbi
the vast majority are too small for the
local government to care as
they have more pressing issues on hand
the money scammers can rake in
far exceeds anything they'd be able to
make with an honest day's work the same
can be said for
anybody choosing a life of crime
scammers especially nigerian
professionals
are treated like stars in their home
towns and villages and it's not like the
scammers don't
not get jail time in their own
respective countries yet this doesn't
stop people from going into the industry
nor does it stop the younger generation
from looking up to them like rock stars
nigerians first achieved notoriety in
the early 1990s for scamming westerners
out of
millions of dollars the scams became
known as 419 which is named after the
section of the nigerian penal code that
goes after this type of specific crime
the first wave of nigerian 419 scammers
were mostly uneducated criminals
the next group consisted of young
educated men but here was the root of
the problem
even though they were highly educated
there just wasn't enough formal jobs to
go around back then
those young men were caught in an
economy that was ruined by a series of
military dictatorships and years of
mismanagement and with their backs up
against the wall
they made the choice of going into crime
it was that or star
they noticed the uneducated scammers
racking up the cash and
decided to join them and of course the
scammers lived it up since they're rich
so it's not that different than
westernized american kids growing up
seeing rap stars and youtubers and
wanting to be like them
in nigeria the 419 scammers were their
versions the younger generation today in
nigeria don't have quite the same
economic environment nor do they have as
much pressure
but their parents and those in between
still harbor that same mindset
the scams are still going today and it's
a big industry
for example in the summer of 2019 the
fbi busted one of their biggest
online scam cases that amounted to over
46 million dollars that scammers tried
to steal
many of these scammers were nigerian and
they operated in the us
they posted as other legitimate business
vendors in order to get actual
businesses to send them money with fake
invoices
this type of scam is known as business
email compromise scams
these business scams have become so
rampant that in the first seven
months of 2019 alone the fbi received
almost
14 000 complaints reporting bec scams
with a total loss of around 1.1
billion dollars that amount matched the
losses reported for all of 2018. in
another
recent high profile case the fbi
arrested nigerian obin wane okay
in an 11 million dollar bec fraud case
before his arrest okay had posed as a
successful entrepreneur he was even
featured on a forbes 30 under
30 list as being a contributor on forbes
online scams have been rapidly
increasing in general
it's not just businesses losing money
it's individuals too
although businesses are the big fish
according to the federal trade
commission people have reported
losing more money on romance scams than
any other fraud type for
three years running in 2020 reported
loss of
romance scams reached a record of 304
million dollars
that figure is up a whopping 50 from
2019
and that's just the money we know about
there are plenty of people out there who
don't want to admit they were scammed
the average victim of an online romance
scam
will be scammed out of roughly 2 500
throughout their fake relationship
many of us hear about these online scams
and think
that would never happen to me odds are
it probably won't but you
may not be the target scammers know they
can't get you
so they're not even willing to try
instead they set their sights
on the most vulnerable what happened in
2020 to make romance scams especially
tantalizing
and obvious reason is the pandemic it
limited our ability to meet in person
many people who didn't use dating apps
before hopped online and romance
scammers took this
opportunity to take full advantage of
these people they fabricate attractive
online profiles to draw people in
often lifting pictures from the web and
using made-up names
some scammers go the extra step and
actually assume the identities of
real people the pandemic has made lives
easier for scammers because
it makes not meeting up makes sense the
pandemic inspired new twists
to scammers stories as an example many
scammers quote unquote
cancelled first date plans because of a
supposed positive covet test
scammers primarily target the older men
and women
looking for love basically anyone in
their 40s 50s and beyond
unfortunately this demographic tends to
cling to the first signs of affection
many people are recently divorced and
don't understand the online dating
environment so
they don't know what's usual and what's
unusual
suddenly an attractive partner on the
other side of a computer screen starts
giving them a lot of attention and
it makes them feel good they tell them
what they want to hear and make them
believe
every word and these targets want to
make the other side happy too
in 2020 reports of gift cards being used
to send money to romance scammers
increased by nearly 70 percent
gift cards along with wire transfers are
the most frequently reported payment
methods for romance scams
reports of money lost on romance scams
increased for every age group
in 2020. interestingly people ages 20 to
29
actually saw the biggest increase with
the number of reports more than
doubling from 2019 however people from
40 to 69 were once again the most likely
to report losing money to
romance scams and who gives out the
money
people 70 and older reported the highest
individual median losses at nine
thousand four hundred and seventy five
dollars scammers aren't just
making things up off the top of their
heads they're following an elaborate
playbook constructed and edited over
years of practice from the most
sophisticated scammers
they have branching scripts to follow
depending on the answers they receive
from their prey the playbook that they
follow lays out step by step how to
manipulate and control vulnerable people
by steering the conversation down
specific
paths at specific moments for example
the playbook includes a long list of
greetings and
flirty one-liners most of them come off
as a little corny but
someone looking for love might be blind
to it once they have their target on the
hook
scammers begin to send longer messages
for example
sometimes they actually play the victim
they talk about how horrible their
experience has been and how tough it's
been for them to make a genuine
connection
this further helps to reinforce that the
quote unquote connection they have with
the target
is real they give the impression of
putting the power in the target's hands
in reality they're in control the entire
time and this
is where something unfortunate happens
to them they begin asking for money
however it's money that will be mutually
beneficial
for example they'll claim to need a new
phone so they can keep talking to the
target playbooks are needed because it's
really a numbers game they need to
recruit members into the organization to
keep pumping out the scams
pyramid scheme like rackets exist all
over nigeria professionals recruit young
workers as a way to build their criminal
organization
they're trained by high-level scammers
and receive a percentage of the money
they bring in
for example one scammer might have 10
workers underneath him that scammer at
the top will receive
10 percent of everything their workers
can siphon off their victims
according to one lifelong scammer the
conversion rate is about 10
supposedly around 1 in 10 people
willingly surrender money
all it takes is that first dollar for
the floodgates to open and
it always starts small a small amount to
cover an emergency
small bill money that's easily parted
with and that's when the floodgates open
for the scammer but of course not
everyone wants to be a scammer the high
profile
arrests have gotten extreme reactions
for the nigerians who don't commit
crimes
many of them have to bear the cost of
the stereotyping that comes with the
online scamming of their fellow
countrymen these costs range from
increased scrutiny for visa processes to
a lack of trust when attempting to do
business internationally
oftentimes nigerians are restricted from
using international payment platforms or
they have to go through intense rounds
of verification
criminals such as al capone and pablo
escobar were looked up and
admired in their respective times
although they were known criminals they
often helped the poorest members of
their communities
the same can be said for nigerian
scammers for example
ramon abbas aka hush puppy is currently
considered the pablo escobar of nigerian
internet scammers
in early 2020 he was indicted in the u.s
connected with a north korean cyber
heist valued at 14.7
million in february of 2021 avis was
connected to another group of north
korean military hackers aimed to extort
more than 1.3
billion in cash and cryptocurrency from
multiple financial institutions and
companies
find out more about his downfall in this
video here
while many nigerian scammers don't live
quite as lavishly as hush puppy
they do flaunt their wealth with large
parties fancy clothes and
fast cars many young nigerians look up
to these scammers and
envy their lavish lifestyles they aim to
live the same way and for many young
nigerians that
road leads to online scams here's what's
next