I'm Not Really Royalty: The World Of Nigerian Internet Scams

"They need new recruits -- they don't want to go looking for clients online -- they need recruits to help them do that. You just look for different, different types. Create multiple Facebook accounts, multiple dating site accounts, and just look for clients."

Most Nigerian scams aren't exactly Ocean's 11 caliber heists. Here's an example:

Most people are never going to fall for something like that, so you've got to cast a wide, wide net.

Ibrahim wound up earning some trust through another method: He knows Photoshop.

"I just showed them what I could do. They sent me a series of pictures and I just showed them. [I could make a] California ID card, different countries. They like me because I do that free of charge."

See, part of a great scam is being able to seem like more than some random spammer to anyone who happens to respond. Your initial message can be obvious phishing to 99 percent of readers, that's fine. But once that 1 percent bites, you'd better be ready to make them really believe. Ibrahim's forgeries didn't need to fool U.S. Customs, they simply needed to look real as an attached .JPG to someone gullible enough to trust attached .JPGs.

Ibrahim considers the Facebook scam we cited earlier to be an example of "true phishing." And as silly and grammatically unsound as it seems, a surprising amount of work goes into pulling one off. First, one of the Yahoo boys pretends to be another winner, contacting the "maga" in excitement.

"They'll send him a message like, hey I just won $600,000 on the Facebook lottery and saw your name on the winners list."

Next, the "maga" is told to contact a Facebook agent:

"We are also the agent. Then when we get in contact as that agent, then we tell them, 'This is your one-time passcode'. After we give them the code, tell them, 'OK keep the code safe, don't tell anyone.' Then the Facebook agent will transfer the client ... we are also the FedEx agent. Then we claim to be a FedEx official who is going to deliver the money."

But this FedEx official needs you to pay for the delivery first.

"It can be $400, $300, $200, $100 -- we just tell them to pay ... the money is just for commitment because we need the person to commit."

Once they've made one payment, they can usually be tricked into making more, because the sunk cost fallacy is a real bitch.

"In fact, these days, Nigerian prince emails are usually sent by the lowest grade of Yahoo boys and they rarely find people who fall for it."

The scam industry is like every other new media business: It lives and dies on innovation. Ibrahim told us about a number of creative new methods of separating "magas" from their money. Like the au pair scam:

"Here, the Yahoo boys [join] one of the many au pair websites and pose as a member of an American family seeking a nanny. Once a nanny (usually from Philippines or Brazil) contacts them, they trick the nanny away from the website and start contacting him via mail. The nanny is then directed to speak to the agent of the family, who is actually the Yahoo boy using another email address. The agent sends the nanny a bogus document, which he tells him to fill and return with a scanned copy of his original ID Card and some 'agency fee.' The 'agent' continues to ask for more money citing one problem or the other before the nanny realizes he has been scammed."

See? Yahoo boys are not exclusively harming rich, retired, tech-naive Americans. The per capita GDP in the Philippines is $2,765 per year, even less than in Nigeria. A scam like this could wipe out an aspiring nanny's entire savings account. Plus ...

"The scanned ID card is also used as identity theft and used to open fake PayPal accounts and Facebook profiles."

Next is the apartment scam:

"Here, the Yahoo boy joins sites like Craigslist where he lists several US apartments for rent. (Details of the apartment are gotten from Zillow.com.) Once a prospective client contacts them, they formulate excuses to explain their absence and tell the client to check the apartment out themselves. If the Yahoo boy is lucky enough, the apartment is unlocked and has not been taken."

If the "maga" decides they want to rent this apartment, they let the Yahoo boy know. He responds, "Sweet! Just send us a small fee, a scan of your ID card, and fill out these forms." That alone shouldn't trip any alarms -- that is the actual process for rental applications. If you spend a few minutes searching any rental site, you'll find bullshit listings like this.

If you've lived in San Diego (or any California city) you know this listing is bullshit because no one outside of a demilitarized zone gets a two bedroom apartment that allows fucking pets for $1,000 a month. That's like, Harry Potter level fantasy. But if you're a rube from Wisconsin with big city dreams, you might not notice anything was wrong until you'd already paid. Scammers, like hyenas and housecats, target the vulnerable. And that leads us to the dating scam.

"This is probably well-known yet people still fall for it. The Yahoo boy poses as a single lady, man, gay, or lesbian on online forums, Facebook, and chat. Once he meets a client, he chats with them and even sends them some money, and maybe flowers to build trust. Thereafter, the Yahoo boy tells the client someone wants to send some money to him but he has problem with his account and begs to use the client account in exchange for a cut. To make sure, the client does not escape with the money, the Yahoo boy introduces him to a fake lawyer and FBI agent."

Yep. Yahoo boys often spend money on gifts like flowers, and even airfare, if it helps them land a "maga." They'll even send out fake checks to keep things looking legit until the last possible moment.

"The check is paid alright, but it is usually a fake and always bounces. But the client (who is usually under pressure) does not realize this early enough and would have sent some of his money to the Yahoo boy before he realizes what's happening."

Ibrahim explained, "The manual states the second step in a Facebook dating scam is to send the client a message using love words and asking after his welfare. The first step involves sending the prospective client a 'friend request.' If he does not reply, the manual states they send a follow-up message with more sweet words. If he replies, the manual states they continue with the chat before asking for some favors. If the prospective client does not reply to the follow-up message, the manual states he should be left alone."

The manual includes a number of different "hooks" to draw in "magas," and it also scripts out confirmation messages once the money's been paid.

A good manual provides Yahoo boys with counter-arguments written in vaguely passable English, in case the "maga" expresses doubts.

The boys who write these are experienced enough to anticipate the most common questions asked by anyone who might actually fall for their scams. It may not look convincing to you, but if, at this point, someone's willing to debate with a Yahoo boy in good faith, there's a good chance it's convincing enough for them.

If we had one suggestion for whoever wrote Ibrahim's manual, it'd be to omit this part:

"Some of the rituals include Ediye Ibile (local fowl). This is done mostly by the wire-wire boys. (Yahoo boys who deal in money transfer fraud.) They kill a non-farm raised fowl, remove its feathers, and grind its entrails with a mortar and pestle until it becomes a pulp. The resultant mixture is then mixed with traditional black soap. The Yahoo boy bathes with the soap and leaves the bathroom without looking back."

This ritual is supposed to impart luck. Another ritual, Olu Gboun, takes it a step further and is supposed to force "magas" to do your bidding. Ibrahim himself was quick to defend its efficacy. When we expressed doubt, he responded, "If I was using Olu Gboun and we were talking on the phone and I told you to do something, I believe you would do it. To me, it works."

We should note that Ibrahim stressed that he never messed around with Voodoo. In fact, he seemed scared of the boys who did. Which is understandable ...

"In Olu Gboun, the Yahoo boy mixes some fetish objects together and wraps it inside a red cloth, which is placed inside a cow horn. He recites an incantation into it and holds it close to his mouth while speaking with whoever he wants to defraud over the telephone. There are also other rituals, like sitting on an upside-down mortar while chatting, spraying olive oil on the laptop (especially the keyboard area), putting the laptop on a live tortoise, and even dropping off sacrifices at street intersections."

Ibrahim was firm that the Voodoo boys "are legends around here. People like, you can go online and type hushpuppi, on Instagram ... there are lot of them. That's what they do, Yahoo, and they are the biggest around."

Hushpuppi is apparently the fucking king of Yahoo boys. He's also pretty big on Instagram:

He even gets into dumb Twitter fights with famous Nigerian people! He's just like our celebrities, though he made his money stealing from the poor and gullible rather than entertaining them. So hey, maybe he's more like our president.

"There's no way the police can know these Yahoo boys without the use of informants. Informants could be fellow Yahoo boys, family, friends, neighbors, or even strangers who have decided to become a snitch in exchange for a cut of whatever the police extorts from the Yahoo boy. Yahoo boys are heavy spenders and are easily noticed. Besides, they often tell people they are Yahoo boys."

Ah, that classic criminal misstep. Do what we do, aspiring scam artists, and claim you work for Reader's Digest. You'll deal with fewer police raids that way.

"An informant once snitched on the cell I was training with. The police raided us -- along with several non-Yahoo boys -- and took us to a police station, along with our laptops. There, we were lined up and one officer fired three shots into the air with his AK 47 in quick succession. The shots had the psychological effect of forcing us into cooperation. We were told to pay some money for our release and anyone who refused to pay forfeited his laptop on the spot, no questions."

When Ibrahim was arrested, his "boss" wound up paying $150,000 Nigerian naira ($472 USD) for their release. Once they'd paid, the cops told them, "'If you have Yahoo friends who are too big, you should [call the cops].' They give us their phone number and say if we have any issue we should call them."

In other words, they were saying, "It sucks you got robbed. But if you'll sell out some of your competitors, we can take them down, too." Upselling isn't usually something you see with police, but we applaud those Nigerian officers for their entrepreneurial spirit.

Ibrahim managed to decline this tempting offer.

"Being an informant could sometimes be risky. There's the story of Razak Adetunji Alaso famously known as Alhaji Gay. He was the number one informant in Nigeria and was known to travel as far as Malaysia to track down Yahoo boys. Whenever he caught them, he demanded tens of thousand of dollars from them, or else he handed them over to the police or the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, where the Yahoo boy was either further extorted, or given a one-way ticket to the 9 o'clock news."

In 2015, Alhaji Gay was stabbed to death for his work busting Yahoo boys. Nigerian social media responded with as much class and dignity as you'd expect.

As for Ibrahim, he's out of the game now and claims he never made a dime -- although he did receive free room and board for his trouble. While the best Yahoo boys could make "$1,000, $2,000, $3,000" on a good wire scam, most Yahoo boys "never make it." Ibrahim reveals, "And those that get to make it never get more than a few hundred or thousand dollars, at best. The Europeans and Americans being scammed are already 'wising up' and it has become difficult to break even these days."

That's why nations like Indonesia and the Philippines now make up a large chunk of the "maga" population. They're newer to the internet and they haven't built up as many cultural antibodies to protect them from scammers. Like Atlantic fisherman, Yahoo boys have snatched up all the best cod in their ocean, forcing them to fish for smaller catches further out. The cod in that analogy was your grandpa after he got his first AOL account. Just so we're clear.

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