Worldwide Slump Makes Nigeria's Online Scammers Work That Much Harder

LAGOS, Nigeria -- Online swindling takes dedication even in the best of times, the scammer said earnestly.

The spinal cord aches from sitting at a desk. The eyes itch from staring at a computer. The heart thumps from drinking bitter cola to stay awake for chats with Americans in faraway time zones. The wallet shrinks from buying potions that supposedly compel the Americans to pay.

Succeeding in the midst of a worldwide economic meltdown? That, he said, takes even firmer resolve.

"We are working harder. The financial crisis is not making it easy for them over there," said Banjo, 24, speaking about Americans, whose trust he has won and whose money he has fleeced, via his Dell laptop. "They don't have money. And the money they don't have, we want."

Though statistics are fuzzy, the FBI-backed Internet Crime Complaint Center says that scam reports by Americans grew 33 percent last year, and that after the United States and Britain, Nigeria housed the most perpetrators. Ultrascan, a Dutch research firm that investigates complaints of 419 fraud, says online scam offers from Nigerians in and outside their homeland have mushroomed this year.

Seun:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/06/AR2009080603764.html

What can Yar'adua do to help these hard-working citizens? How about free accommodation in jail?

redsun:

Yahoo boys are relatively more patriotic than yaradua and the rest of nigerian politicians.

redsun:

Honestly,it must take some kind of hypnotism for people to willing give out their hard earned money to invincble callers,not just a couple of quid but thousands of it.

blacksta:

As Jakumo mentioned those guys have tortoise round their neck

aieromon:

Yahoo boys are the most hardworking and innovative people in Nigeria.
Only problem is the negative channel of energy.

The Spanish Prisoner is a confidence trick dating back to the early 1900s[1]. In its original form, the confidence man (con-man) tells his victim (the mark) that he is in correspondence with a wealthy person of high estate who has been imprisoned in Spain under a false identity. The alleged prisoner cannot reveal his identity without serious repercussions, and is relying on the confidence trickster to raise money to secure his release. The confidence trickster offers to let the victim supply some of the money, with a promise that he will be rewarded generously when the prisoner returns; financially and perhaps also by being married to the prisoner's beautiful daughter. However, once the victim has turned over his money, he learns that further difficulties have arisen, requiring more money, and the trickster continues attempting to get more money until the victim is cleaned out and the process ends, presumably with the victim realizing he has been defrauded and that there is neither a rich man, nor a reward coming to him.

Key features of the Spanish Prisoner trick are the emphasis on secrecy and the trust the confidence trickster is supposedly placing in the victim not to reveal the prisoner's identity or situation. The confidence trickster will often claim to have chosen the victim carefully, based on his reputation for honesty and straight dealing, and may appear to structure the deal so that the confidence trickster's ultimate share of the reward will be distributed voluntarily by the victim.

Modern variants of the Spanish Prisoner include the advance fee fraud, in particular the Nigerian money transfer fraud (or "419 fraud". In the advance fee fraud, a valuable item must be ransomed from a warehouse, crooked customs agent, or lost baggage facility before the authorities or thieves recognize its value. In the Nigerian variation, a self-proclaimed relative of a deposed African dictator offers to transfer millions of ill-gotten dollars into the bank account of the victim in return for small initial payments to cover bribes and other expenses.

The politicians in combination with foreign conniving counterparts export our hard money to oyinbos,while the yahoo boys in their ingenious ways imports the hard currencies back to the country.

asha 80:

what do you mean by free accomodation?

Jakumo:

On reading that Washington Post description of the Nigerian internet scammer who wears a good luck live tortoise on a rope around his neck, I quickly placed my own mail-order for a similar live tortoise necklace that I can don prior to any future encounters with roadside Nigerian Police Force tax collectors.

MrCrackles:

asha 80:

i go like meet this jakumo.the guy is something else.

I swear. . . . .