Yahoo Yahoo; A Layman's understanding.

419 scams: A fast spreading epidemic amongst Nigerian youths today.

One must have lived under a rock for most of their lives to not have heard about the globally infamous “Nigerian princes” and no, I am not in any way referring to the male off-springs of the (excessively?) numerous monarchs in Nigeria. In this particular piece, I’ll be writing about the broke Nigerian princes that always need their victims (mostly foreign, sometimes local) to help them with a relatively small sum of money to facilitate them getting a larger sum of money from a rather obscure source while promising their victims a significant share of the larger sum. Now these individuals go by several names in the motherland; Yahoo boys, 419 fraudsters, G-boys and so on but their modus operandi is almost always the same.

Now it should be noted that advance-fee scams are just one of the numerous types of financial crimes out there and while they mainly originate from other nations, Nigeria is for some odd reason the only nation mostly known for these scams.

This Layman has been “privileged” to speak with several yahoo boys and I always ask about their motives for resorting to 419 scams to make ends meet. Some people would cite their unfortunate lack of financial resources while others would give outlandish reasons for their actions.

Such was the case when one of my “interviewees” stated that he was in it to enact revenge on the “white people” that carted away our precious relics and sold our ancestors as slaves and I was left speechless for the better half of a minute. His answer made me realize that there are indeed some people that still don’t know that slave trading was a thing long before the European’s incursion into Africa. In fact most of the slaves bought by the Europeans were sold by the local slave traders who for sure had no problems with exchanging their fellow black brethren for rifles, umbrellas, glassware and alcohol. It should however be noted that this layman doesn’t think that the inclusion of local slave traders in the slave trade system somehow absolves the European slave traders of their crimes.

Now speaking from the position of an average Nigerian, I believe that the internet fraud boom was caused by a series of factors. The absence of employment opportunities for young people and terrible economic state of the nation are the major reasons why a lot of people resort to committing these crimes.

Another important factor is the activities of local celebrities that promote scamming as a “cool” way to get rich quickly. They would often pose with expensive cars, wear expensive jewelries and clothes to portray the luxury that can be easily gotten from internet fraud.

The advance-fee scam has several variants each possessing different methods of operation. All of the variants almost always begins with the scam artist sending out dubious emails or text messages via social media to hundreds of people as bait.

Now this stage is the elimination stage that separates the ‘street smart’ people from the gullible ones. The gullible recipients often reply to the emails/text messages and they then immediately become “clients” who are told about “an incredible opportunity to earn a fortune”. These opportunities can range from them (the scammer) being a Nigerian prince trying to smuggle a stolen fortune out of the country to them being an American soldier that discovered cache of gold bars hidden somewhere in Iraq and the clients are immediately offered a share of the money.

To better reassure the clients, the fraudsters often send fake documents bearing official stamps and seals and once the client’s confidence has been gained, they request for a sum of money needed to resolve one technical issue or the other and once that money has been wired through western union for example, the scammer anonymously gets the money and keeps it. It is now up to the scam artist to decide whether to cut the client loose or to continue fleecing them. Another issue comes up if he decides to continue and the client is once again needed to send monetary aid to rescue their venture. This continues until the client is either informed by a third party of the suspicious manner of the transaction or comes to their sense and realize they have fallen for a scam.

This writer has come to realize that there is another variant of the 419 scam commonly favored by the infamous Nigerian yahoo boys; the romance scam. This always begins with the scam artist approaching the victim on a social media platform. The scammer shows interest in the victim and assumes the fake identity of an attractive individual. The scammer then communicates with their prey over a period of time before asking for money. The scammer almost always creates a reasonable explanation for why they need the money and then asks for said funds to be wired to them. There are however times when the scam artist would link their romance scam to an entirely different variant of the internet fraud gallery. The other variants could range from employment scams to lottery scams.

There are however some common elements typically involved in 419 scams that should automatically let a potential victim realize the precocious nature of their affairs. One of them is the irreversible money transfers; wire transfers via Western Union and Money-Gram are ideal for this purpose. Another common element is the anonymous communication employed by many scammers to hide their true identity. All scammers either communicate with their victims anonymously or assume the identity of an entirely different individual.

And that in this Layman’s negligible opinion is enough boring talk for one article. While Yahoo Yahoo fraud has a complicated position in Nigeria as a “get rich quick” method to earn money, It should be noted that internet fraud has always been-, is still a- and will always be a financial crime.

It saddens my heart to see Nigerians accept this crime and its perpetrators as something “normal”. To really understand just how dreadful this crime is, you have to “see” through the victim's perspective. Just think about it; a middle aged man somewhere out there suddenly coming to a realization that his life savings has just been invested in a dodgy investment scheme that hasn’t produced any returns yet and his fellow “investors” can no longer be contacted. He immediately feels his blood pressure rising, sweat begins to ooze out of his skin in places he didn’t know was possible and a general sense of despair/hopelessness begins to settle in. That most times than not is the beginning of the torment that is about to come their way.

Meanwhile the successful Yahoo boys back in “Lagos” begin to lead a life of decadence and extravagance. They get expensive vehicles to cruise around with, expensive phones and gadgets and waste millions of Naira in night clubs and bars.

It should however be noted that Yahoo boys (the repeatedly successful ones anyway) don’t have “happily ever after” lives over here. They are often accosted by members of the Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS) of the Nigerian Police Force as well as operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). And yeah, I am indeed referring to the tyrannical department of the Nigerian Police Force whose repeated actions of police brutality and excessive violence against Nigerian youths would result into the famously known “END-SARS” movement in 2020.

A few months ago, whilst this writer was on his way to Ibadan; the state capital of Oyo state, I was able to experience just how “miserable” life can get for Yahoo boys in Nigeria. There was this Yahoo boy (man in this case. he looked to be in his late thirties to me) that was in the same commercial vehicle I was in.

Now the driver of the vehicle decided to disobey a traffic law or two on the major highway leading into the state and was immediately apprehended by operatives of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) who directed him to park his vehicle at a designated spot for inspection. No sooner had the vehicle stopped that this slightly old man (with extravagant clothes and a weirdly dyed beard) alighted from the vehicle and immediately flagged down a commercial bike before fleeing. I was initially confused until I saw a few police officers heading towards our vehicle and everything immediately made sense.

In conclusion, I’ll like to state that anyone that decides to dabble into the illegitimate hustle known as advance fee fraud is simply doing it of their own freewill and choice. It doesn’t matter whether your father died when you were twelve or you were unable to get a decent job after graduating from a higher institution; no excuse you have will ever be able to justify your despicable choice to make people feel deep sorrow as a way to earn a living. So my dear friend P (who I met during my SIWES internship in Abeokuta, Ogun state), Your father’s refusal to sponsor you through your polytechnic education is still not a valid enough reason to resort to advance fee fraud to make ends meet.

And in case it wasn’t obvious enough; The Layman detests the canker-worms in our society that contributes to the terrible reputation this “shit-hole” country of ours suffers from on a global scale. He is unable to feel any empathy whatsoever to their “terrible origin stories” that gave them no choice but to commit such despicable financial crimes. A thief is a thief regardless of the reason why he steals.