The REAL Reason Why So Many Scammers Are From Nigeria! - YouTube

Internet Age 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 and 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.

Nigerian Economy Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa,

and also the continent’s biggest economy.

However, as of 2019, roughly 40% 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 rout 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.

“Rock Stars” 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 hometowns

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 at 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 weren’t formal jobs to go around back

then.

Those young men were caught in an economy that were 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 starve.

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.

Millions upon Millions The scams are still going today.

And it’s a big industry.

For example, in the summer 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 posed 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 Obinwanne Okeke in an $11

million dollar BEC fraud case.

Before his arrest, Okeke 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 on any other fraud type for three years running.

In 2020, reported losses 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’re scammed.

The average victim of an online romance scam will be scammed out of roughly twenty-five

hundred dollars throughout their fake relationship.

Pandemic Heart Strings 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 a 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?

An 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 make sense.

The pandemic inspired new twists to scammer’s stories.

As an example, many scammers quote unquote “canceled” first date plans because of

a supposed positive COVID test!

Who's a target?

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%.

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 ages 40 to 69 were once again the most likely to report losing money to

romance scams.

And who gives out the most money?

People 70 and older reported the highest individual median losses at Nine thousand four hundred

and seventy-five dollars!

The Scammer's Playbook 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’ll 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.

10 Percenters 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 ten workers underneath them.

That scammer at the top will receive 10% 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!

Citizens 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 costs 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.

Societal Status Criminals such as Al Capone and Pablo Escobar

were looked up to 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 'Hushpuppie', is currently considered the Pablo Escobar

of Nigerian internet scammers.

In early 2020, he was indicted in the US connected with a North Korean cyber-heist valued at

$14.7 Million.

In February of 2021, Abbas was connected to another group of North Korean military hackers

aiming 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 Hushpuppi, 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!