Latest / The Smart Cookies podcast / The Wild Lives of Nigerian Romance Scammers | Carlos Barragan

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The Wild Lives of Nigerian Romance Scammers | Carlos Barragan · The Smart Cookies podcast

0:00
Telling to me that the idea that stealing $10,
0:03
$50 from the white man and from the white woman
0:06
is not a lot of money for them. While for the
0:10
Yahoo boys might be survival. Of course, you
0:14
know, I also talked to many other Nigerians who
0:16
would say that's a silly excuse, whatever. I'm
0:19
going to quickly go back to your question. So
0:21
they have these scripts and they do trial and
0:24
error. You know, you are a small boy, 14 years
0:26
old. You want to get $5, $10 to buy a burger
0:31
or whatever in Legos. And you have no idea to
0:35
talk to a white person. Might not be white, but
0:37
most of them are white, the victims. And they
0:41
just copy and paste, copy and paste, copy and
0:44
paste all the time. And as you can imagine, when
0:47
you do copy and paste, it doesn't work. And the
0:50
most sophisticated scammers realize. that each
0:54
single conversation needs to be filtered, needs
0:58
to be personal. Carlos Barragan is a reporter
1:03
for New York Times based in Madrid. He's the
1:06
author of highly anticipated nonfiction book,
1:09
The Yahoo Boys, Love Deception and the Real Lives
1:13
of Nigeria's Romance Scammers. Carlos, welcome
1:16
to the pod. Thank you so much for having me here.
1:21
The book that's coming out next week, I believe,
1:23
is already generating an enormous amount of buzz
1:26
and anticipation, which is how I've heard of
1:28
it. So massive congrats for that. Has HBO knocked
1:32
on the door yet to get the rights of the book?
1:34
Because the story reads like it could be an insanely
1:37
bingeable TV show. Only pick up the phone if
1:40
it's David Simon calling. No, I'm kidding. HBO
1:44
has not called yet, unfortunately. But, you know,
1:47
maybe when he comes out. Have you seen Tokyo
1:50
Vice by any chance? I did. Yes, I did. It's about
1:54
like an American journalist, okay, living in
1:56
Japan, for those who haven't seen it, embedding
1:58
himself into the world of the Yakuza, which he's
2:01
reporting on. In fact, I've had Jake Adelstein,
2:03
the real guy on the podcast. He's fun. This is
2:06
similar, only even more sprawling in scope and
2:10
most of all, more heartbreaking in many unexpected
2:13
ways, which we'll encounter later on. In any
2:17
case... You might be, Carlos, an acclaimed New
2:20
York Times journalist, but my own formidable
2:22
skills of detection let me know that this story
2:26
that eventually grew into the book wasn't just
2:30
some random assignment you picked out of a hat.
2:33
In fact, it started much closer to home for you,
2:37
unfortunately, with a personal disaster. Tell
2:41
me how. So I don't think I would call it disaster,
2:45
probably because first, My mom didn't lose any
2:48
money. And second, we turn it into kind of like
2:51
a family joke. But I'm going to explain to listeners
2:54
what happened. So in 2015, my mother came to
2:59
me and told me, I've met someone on Tinder. And,
3:03
you know, my parents divorced in early 2000s.
3:06
And my mom took care of me and my two older brothers.
3:10
And she had a boyfriend, but for the longest
3:13
period. I would say that she was single. So it
3:18
was great news that she had finally met someone
3:21
on Tinder. Actually, I had encouraged her to
3:24
use. But the problem was that she showed us some
3:28
pictures and it was a bit of a stretch because
3:31
the guy was very handsome, strong, younger than
3:35
my mother. He was supposed to be an American
3:39
soldier based in Syria. Everything sounded very
3:42
weird and strange. But at the same time, he was
3:45
not asking for anything. So my older brother,
3:48
who is also in the military, right off the bat
3:50
said, this is a scam. And after that, my mom
3:53
didn't share anything with him. But at the same
3:56
time, 2015 internet, it was a very different
4:00
internet from the one we have now. Right now,
4:02
we are all cynics. We all know everything might
4:06
be a scam. But back then, especially for older
4:08
people, they were more naive about what could
4:13
happen on the internet. Long story short, they
4:15
started talking, they started exchanging emails,
4:17
and my mom became more and more passionate and
4:21
hooked because he was telling her he wanted to
4:25
leave the military and he wanted to start a new
4:27
life with her in Madrid. That led to some tensions
4:32
because we didn't believe the story, my brothers
4:35
and I, and we told her, have you ever seen the
4:37
guy? No, it's only by email. This is very suspicious.
4:42
And at some point, my mom came home with two
4:45
rings and told us that Brian, and that was the
4:48
guy's name, Brian, was coming home. They were
4:52
going to start a new life together. And we said
4:55
no. And then that led to like a fight, et cetera,
4:59
et cetera. And after a few days, Brian told my
5:02
mom he was sending some gold bars, as in solid
5:05
gold bars, to our home. And that moment, my brother,
5:09
one of my brothers, said this great quote, saying,
5:12
Mom. There's no gold bars entering our house.
5:15
And that was when I started doing some research
5:19
and I found that it was a common scam, especially
5:23
in English, you know, not so much in Spanish.
5:25
That's when I traced the IP email address. I
5:28
entered, I used my mom's email and I traced the
5:32
IP email address and I saw that the guy was texting
5:36
my mom from... Lagos, Nigeria. And I showed her,
5:40
she realized that she was being scammed. So she
5:43
didn't lose any money. We avoided her. We stopped
5:46
her before losing any money because the idea
5:48
is that they tell you, we're going to send you
5:51
some money, some gold bars. And it's not that
5:54
my mom, they thought my mom is greedy, but what
5:57
they think, these scammers, is that if you send
6:00
them something that might be the beginning of
6:03
the relationship, aka... the money that will
6:06
buy the house where they will live together.
6:09
That is something that these victims will do
6:13
absolutely anything to get. So my mom realized
6:19
that she was being scammed and she deleted everything.
6:22
She stopped talking to these scammers. So in
6:24
a way, it became kind of like a family joke.
6:27
But after a few years during the pandemic, I
6:31
saw my mom struggling with so much loneliness.
6:34
because the lockdowns were pretty strict here
6:36
in Spain, I had just moved out, I am the youngest,
6:40
that I started thinking about the scammer again.
6:43
So I thought, who was that guy? How do you suddenly
6:51
decide you're going to scam another human being?
6:55
How do you do it? What do you have to do to convince
6:58
my mom that you are real? And probably the most
7:02
important question, why did my mom fall for it?
7:05
So that's why in 2022, I decided to travel to
7:09
Lagos for the first time in the hope that I would
7:12
find my mother's camera. So as you can imagine,
7:15
I was also pretty naive. So let's review this
7:19
for clarification. So literally like Batman,
7:22
you intended to go to a country you've never
7:24
been before where you don't know anybody. Locate
7:26
this one. possibly dangerous individual out of
7:29
approximately 250 million people and then shake
7:32
him down or something. I hope you'll forgive
7:34
me, but that sounds a little bit crazy. Well,
7:38
a few nuances. First, I had been in Nigeria once
7:42
before this for different reasons, maybe like
7:45
10 days when I was visiting a Spanish friend.
7:49
And then later, another nuance is that I hired
7:54
a local journalist, a fixer. who was going to
7:57
help me find some of these cameras, you know,
7:59
because it was not only trying to find my mother's
8:02
camera. The idea was to write, let's say, a magazine
8:04
piece because I was a bit frustrated with the
8:09
content that was online. I was a bit frustrated
8:11
with the stereotypes because all I wanted to
8:14
know was who are these people, you know, why
8:18
they do it, how they do it. I don't want stereotypes.
8:21
I've heard so many times about the Nigerian prince,
8:24
but that does not tell me anything. And that's
8:26
from the 90s. So obviously, I was going there
8:29
as a journalist, but also with the idea of why
8:32
not? Maybe I can find my mom's scammer. Obviously,
8:34
when I got there, I realized it's not only 250
8:37
or 200 million people living in Nigeria. It's
8:40
just that there are thousands of scammers doing
8:42
this just in one neighborhood. So there was no
8:45
chance I could find him. But in that first trip,
8:49
because then later I went there at least five
8:51
more times. In that first trip, I happened to
8:56
spend some time with a scammer who is Biggie.
8:58
And he's one of the main characters of the book.
9:00
And he acted as a like kind of like a local guide
9:04
for me and my fixer. And he helped us meet all
9:08
the Yahoo boys. And that's the name that... how
9:13
they recognize the scammers as the name they
9:14
use for local scammers in Nigeria because of
9:17
the email service they were using in 2000s. They
9:20
got that nickname. And it's funny also because
9:23
they don't pronounce it Yahoo. They pronounce
9:25
it. No, sorry. They don't pronounce it as Yahoo.
9:28
They pronounce it as Yahoo. So I spent 10 days
9:33
with this scammer. I hung out with him. During
9:35
the first trip. Yes, because the guy that I hired,
9:39
and I explain this in the book, the guy that
9:41
I hired, Bukola Mosheni, he became very ill in
9:45
the first trip. So he brought this guy with him
9:48
and we were staying in a small apartment, two
9:51
rooms and a living room. And my guy became very
9:56
ill. He contracted typhoid and another illness.
10:02
And now I cannot remember. So we had to take
10:05
him to the hospital. And suddenly I'm in this
10:08
massive city where I know no one. And I'm living
10:14
with a scammer because he was going to be our
10:17
guide. But then suddenly without my fixer, he
10:20
becomes my own guide. Biggie. Yes, Biggie. And
10:24
suddenly, I think this is the important point
10:27
of the book. When I decide I'm not going to write
10:30
a magazine piece only, I'm going to write a book.
10:33
Because Biggie, who was, again, the first scammer
10:36
I've ever met, I interviewed him for many hours
10:39
about the scam. He told me all the specifics,
10:41
how he does it. He showed me conversations, etc.,
10:44
etc., etc. All the mechanics of the scam and
10:48
the psychology of the scam. But at the same time,
10:51
there were moments where we were just hanging
10:53
out. where I would wake up and I would see him
10:56
completely wearing his underwear and snoring
10:59
wildly on the sofa after smoking so much weed.
11:04
At the same time, we hung out, we drank together,
11:07
we went to many places in Lagos. So I discovered
11:10
another face of the scammer that I was not supposed
11:13
to see just through the interviews. And that
11:16
was when I saw that there was a book to write
11:19
about these guys. Because obviously, as with
11:22
any human being, They are more than their actions.
11:25
They are more than what they've become. And there
11:28
were so many questions there that I was so curious
11:31
about, I decided to write this book. So Biggie
11:34
and the rest of the, I think there's four characters
11:38
in the book, four scammers. They kind of, from
11:41
what you're saying right now, adopted you pretty
11:44
quick, even though you're a foreign journalist
11:47
who's investigating the underbelly of this scam.
11:52
which is potentially not good for their line
11:55
of work. It was not that easy and it was not
11:57
that quickly. Maybe Biggie, he was faster because
12:01
he knew Bukola Moshani, my friend and fixer,
12:04
who became like, we became very close in the
12:07
following trips because I hired him for the whole
12:10
book. So we became kind of like local, like he
12:13
was my local partner. But then after Biggie,
12:16
I went to Nigeria at least two more times without...
12:22
really knowing what the book was going to be
12:23
about, how I was going to structure the book.
12:26
I was doing a lot of reporting, but it was more
12:28
general reporting. I was interviewing filmmakers
12:31
in Nigeria, politicians, police officers, Yahoo
12:36
boys as well. But I did not have the characters.
12:39
And it was only during my third trip when I was
12:44
visiting Biggie in his neighborhood called Ikotun.
12:47
Ikotun is a very poor community. in the outskirts
12:51
of Lagos, Islam, the hood, as they call it. And
12:55
when I was there, I met some of his friends,
12:57
and many of them were also scammers. And I realized
13:01
that I had to center this story in a local community,
13:06
because with my resources, I was never going
13:09
to be able to cover Lagos. And it's also impossible,
13:13
it's a massive city. And for me, it was more
13:17
interesting, the idea of focusing on a struggling
13:20
community. So I started spending time there.
13:23
And of course, also thanks to Bukola, the local
13:27
guy, I started interviewing dozens of Yahoo boys.
13:32
Many, many, many, many of them. I would book
13:34
a hotel room and it was kind of like a casting.
13:38
Obviously, some of them didn't want to talk.
13:41
They didn't show up to the interviews. Others
13:44
show up and they were very cagey and they didn't
13:47
tell me that much. But, you know, once you see
13:51
a guy, I just hang out there for so long that
13:55
in the end, I would say that after my fifth trip,
13:58
everyone wanted to talk to me. At the beginning,
14:01
they didn't. Because at the beginning, many of
14:04
them thought, well, they've told me whether I
14:07
was an FBI agent. Whether I was a Chinese businessman
14:11
and, you know, I'm from Spain. So that gives
14:14
you an idea of how little they know about our
14:18
world. Or it's not very common to see a white
14:22
man there. And they also thought that Bucola
14:25
was scamming me in some way. But I guess the
14:28
turning point was when I started questions not
14:31
only about the scam, but about their lives. And
14:34
some of these boys... you know what i'm going
14:38
to say i'm not not justifying what they are doing
14:40
but in the book you see that these boys are very
14:43
lonely as well like they have very hard they've
14:46
lived very hard lives and no one really cares
14:50
about them so sorry to interrupt but what do
14:54
you mean hard lives if we put it in a bit more
14:57
specific terms yes definitely most of the characters
15:00
they don't have a father figure He has left.
15:04
They don't know their father is very common there.
15:06
Most of them, they struggle to have free meals
15:09
a day. It is very rare to get like meat, for
15:13
example, on a normal day in the streets. No one
15:16
cared that much about you in that context. So
15:19
it's a very rough world. As anybody can imagine,
15:22
like for example, I'm going to give you a very
15:25
specific example. Aziz is one of the main characters
15:28
and he's a kid. He's 14, 15 when I met him. And
15:33
his mom sells food on the street. She might make
15:37
$2 a day. And that's it. And Lagos is a very
15:41
expensive city because they import almost everything
15:44
in Nigeria. raises another problem. Everything
15:48
has exorbitant prices for them. So that is kind
15:53
of like the context in which they grow up. And
15:55
suddenly I show up and I start asking these questions.
15:59
They see after a few weeks or months or trips
16:02
that I'm not a danger because they also see me
16:06
with Bukola, who is from the community. I forgot
16:09
to add that, but Bukola Mosheni is from Ikotun.
16:11
So they trust him. And last point I would say
16:15
is that It's very hard to know as a reporter
16:18
why someone is trusting you with their story.
16:20
I would say that with the characters, they all
16:22
had different reasons. Again, it was just a matter
16:25
of persistence. But of course, there were many
16:28
of them who didn't ever want to talk to me. Maybe
16:30
it's just like a sometimes at least a basic human
16:33
need to be seen or heard, especially if you've
16:36
been living this kind of like anonymous hard
16:38
life. Totally. And I think there was a... like
16:42
a bag of contradictions. Some of them wanted
16:44
to brag about what they were doing, you know.
16:47
Chibuque, for example, a guy who got tens of
16:49
thousands of euros from an Irish woman. He was
16:53
incredibly lonely, but at the same time, he was
16:55
bragging when he was telling me how he had made
16:58
this woman send him so much money. At the same
17:01
time, they wanted recognition. And for them,
17:07
Maybe it was some sort of like therapy where
17:10
they understood why they ended up doing what
17:14
they were doing. Of course, you always have a
17:17
choice. But once you go all the way back to your
17:21
kind of like quote unquote origins, you see that
17:25
maybe you didn't have that many chances to do
17:28
something different. Or maybe you did. I was
17:31
always very worried that in a way I was providing
17:34
them. a justification. So I was always on the
17:39
edge because I didn't want to push them too much
17:42
to the point where they were like, you're judging
17:44
me and I don't want to keep talking to you. Or
17:49
to the other point where I was kind of like hanging
17:51
out with them and laughing about their tactics
17:55
and the way they, not humiliate, but the way
17:58
they full lonely people in the West. So I think
18:03
it was a difficult balance. And, you know, you
18:08
mentioned there are four characters, but there
18:11
is, in the second half of the book, I managed
18:13
to find a fifth character who is a woman. Her
18:17
name is Miracle. And Miracle was kind of like
18:20
sleeping together with Biggie. And Biggie had
18:23
not told me that he knew a Yahoo girl. And I
18:29
was looking for one. I was desperately looking
18:30
for one. So one day we were hanging out. We were
18:34
playing pool, Biggie and I, and he brought Miracle.
18:37
I started talking to her. I discovered that she
18:41
was also scamming American men. And she was also
18:45
bragging. She wanted to tell me what she was
18:49
doing. And we managed to get her to come to our
18:52
apartment the following day. And in an interview
18:56
of five hours, she told me her whole life. And
19:01
she showed me how she was scamming both American
19:04
men out of sheer loneliness, but also she was
19:07
scamming other women who were trying to adopt
19:09
a baby. Very ruthless woman. Of course, there
19:14
was also a tragic story. She had been trafficked.
19:18
She had been raped. All sorts of nightmares.
19:24
I wanted to turn her into a fully fleshed out
19:30
character. But after those five hours, the next
19:33
time we were supposed to meet, she was going
19:37
to bring her diary. We sent her money for transport.
19:40
It takes hours to get to your destination, especially
19:43
with the traffic. So we sent her like maybe,
19:45
I don't know, five or ten dollars for an Uber.
19:48
And after an hour, she was not there. And we
19:51
texted her and, where are you? Why are you not
19:54
here? And she replied saying, this traffic, don't
19:58
buzz my balls or something like that. And yeah,
20:02
she was pretty reckless and tough. And after
20:05
two hours, we called her again and she didn't
20:08
pick up. And after three hours, it was obvious
20:11
she was not going to show up. And we later confirmed
20:14
she was fine. And we realized she had escaped
20:18
us. She had decided that she didn't want to keep
20:21
talking to us because we were not offering any
20:23
money. And this is important that I never paid
20:26
for testimony. And she asked for money. And when
20:30
she thought she was not going to get anything
20:32
from these interviews, she decided, fuck off.
20:36
By the way, were you always living with these
20:41
guys or just some of the time? At the beginning,
20:43
you did tell me that you were staying with Biggie,
20:45
right? So when you were living, yeah. The first
20:49
trip, it was a 15 -day trip. I think I was with
20:53
Biggie for 10 days. But then later in the following
20:57
trips, I was living just with my fixer, with
20:59
Bukola. And I was living on the mainland. And
21:02
Lagos is, you have mainland, which is where like
21:05
most people live, from middle class to working
21:09
class people, everyone. And then you have the
21:13
islands and it's kind of like archipelago of
21:15
islands. And that's where like wealthy people
21:17
live, both expats and Nigerians. But I decided
21:20
I wanted to live on the mainland because I was
21:23
closer to these people. Like the ride to Ikotun
21:28
maybe was like 20 or 30 minutes, which for Lego
21:31
standards is like nothing. But at the same time,
21:34
I wanted to be very close to their realities.
21:36
And every single day we would drive to Ikotun.
21:40
And we would spend the whole day there. Right.
21:43
Okay, so you're spending a lot of your time with
21:46
these guys. How do you handle the knowledge that
21:52
these are all scammers and that they might be
21:55
potentially playing some sort of a long game
21:57
with you? Because I would be terribly paranoid.
21:59
Even they thought that your fixer is trying to
22:02
scam you for a while, right? No, totally. This
22:05
is a fair question. I think many times people
22:09
don't understand when a foreign reporter goes
22:12
to another country, they usually rely on fixers.
22:17
And for the most part, they are never acknowledged
22:21
because, you know, the foreign reporter, normally
22:25
American or British, they take all the credit.
22:28
In this case, it was just because I was working
22:32
with Bukola. who was a key part of the project.
22:36
He even has a fixed share of the book profits.
22:42
Because once I realized the kind of book I wanted
22:45
to do, which required so much immersion in Legos,
22:51
I knew that someone like Bukola was absolutely
22:55
fundamental to the project. It's easier to fool
22:57
someone like me in Ecotune than someone like
23:01
him. Because he's 45. He was also a reporter
23:04
back then. He knew all these people. He had grown
23:07
up there. And of course, all these people were
23:11
always trying to take advantage of us. We never
23:14
paid for money. But at the same time, we would
23:16
offer food, we would offer transportation, you
23:19
know, kind of like things that you do as a reporter
23:21
to your subjects. And in the end, these guys
23:26
are scammers. They were always trying to come
23:29
up. with ways to take advantage. But I would
23:35
say that Bukola knew how to keep distance. So
23:39
that required playing the long game. Sometimes,
23:42
because we would never know when they were going
23:45
to show up to the interview. I spent so many
23:48
mornings waiting in shabby hotels for them to
23:52
appear. And they were just so high that they
23:56
would forget. Or they would be like... fuck you,
23:58
I don't want to do the interview today. It was
24:02
truly exhausting and desesperating, but we didn't
24:07
have any other choice. So basically, every single
24:10
interview I did with these guys, I always tried
24:13
to do as much as possible. If I had them in front
24:16
of me, I tried to do a three hour, four hour,
24:20
five hour interview because I never knew when
24:22
I was going to have them again. So that was kind
24:26
of like the negotiations all the time. I would
24:28
say that after many, many interviews, it became
24:33
so clear what we were doing that most of them
24:36
said, OK, you know what? Like, if you want to
24:39
talk about my life, let's do it. They kind of
24:41
like surrendered. once they saw what we were
24:45
doing. But it was hard, you know. At the same
24:49
time, your question raises another question.
24:51
These people are scammers. They are lying. They're
24:54
victims all the time for a living. And they are
24:58
also lying to themselves. So how do you know
25:01
that they are not lying to you? I think that
25:03
that was a question that didn't allow me to sleep
25:06
much at night. Do they observe some sort of thieves
25:11
law when they're where they're not like scamming
25:14
each other? Is that a thing or is like kind of
25:19
in this dog eat dog world? Nobody sort of say.
25:23
I would say both. And let me put you let me give
25:26
you an example. The book starts with, well, not
25:29
the first chapter, but the first chapter of Biggie
25:32
starts with Biggie hanging out in a place. they
25:36
informally called the palace. And it's an old
25:39
house. It was built by a rich man a few decades
25:43
ago. And now that he was dead, his children used
25:47
that place as a kind of communal gathering for
25:50
people in the neighborhood. And boys would go
25:54
there. They would smoke weed. They would hang
25:56
out. They would share their food. And it was
25:59
a very nice place to be because most of these
26:01
people remember. They might not even have a home
26:05
anymore. They might be sleeping on the floor.
26:07
The conditions, again, are pretty rough. The
26:10
most common house in Ecotune is one that is called
26:13
Face Me, I Face You. And basically it's just
26:16
a building with 10 rooms, five in front of five
26:20
rooms in front of another five rooms. And those
26:23
are just like really small rooms with maybe just
26:26
one bed where two or three people sleep on the
26:29
bed. the mother and maybe the youngest kid and
26:33
two other kids might sleep on the floor. So you
26:36
have a building with maybe 50 to 80 people living
26:40
there. So the conditions are pretty rough. And
26:42
then you have this communal building where you
26:45
can go there, you can charge your phone because
26:47
normally they have electricity in this building.
26:50
You can charge your phone there, step aside and
26:52
your phone will be there. There's no stealing
26:54
in the formal sense of the word. But having said
26:59
that, of course, dog eats dog is still king because
27:03
many yahoo boys would tell me that they wouldn't
27:08
want their friends to see their conversations
27:12
with their victims because they are afraid they
27:16
might steal their victims how do they do that
27:19
well you just see the name of the victim on facebook
27:24
and you just look her up or look him up and just
27:28
start chatting with them And maybe you tell them
27:31
this person you are talking to is a scammer.
27:34
I'm the real person. And suddenly it's like your
27:37
friend is stealing your source of income because
27:41
they also want the money. They are sabotaging
27:43
you. So basically they are enmeshed in this incredibly
27:47
paranoid world where they don't tell nothing
27:51
to anybody. Of course, sometimes you might have
27:54
friends who are... nicer and they kind of like
27:57
share their tactics and they tell them look what
28:01
this which means like a white person is telling
28:04
me what should i say etc etc but they are very
28:07
mistrustful and they are always very cagey well
28:13
tell me about the mechanics of the scam so they're
28:16
they're never saying i'm a young nigerian man
28:19
they're always pretending that they're like an
28:21
american soldier or I don't know, an American
28:24
wrestler, I believe, or something along those
28:27
lines. So they have to create a false identity
28:31
first, right? They have to make the profiles.
28:34
And then what? Like you said, they're just like
28:36
trying to match people on Tinder or just like
28:40
messaging randos on Facebook, probably preferably
28:44
in the States, right? Because they know people
28:46
have more money. Yeah. So let me give you a very
28:51
short summary of the scams to understand how
28:55
they got there. So everybody could be familiarized
28:58
with the infamous Nigerian Prince scam. back
29:03
in the 90s. I got a couple of those. I remember
29:05
those fondly. We are still getting some of those
29:09
emails. It started with letters, with physical
29:12
letters that they would send to Europe and America
29:15
saying, I'm an Nigerian prince with $10 million
29:20
in my bank account, but I cannot access it. Can
29:24
you help me? And if you help me, because I need
29:26
the help of an American, I will give you 5 %
29:30
of it. And it relied on some sort of, how can
29:36
I put it? The idea that a Nigerian would need
29:41
a white man's help relied on the fake superiority
29:46
of the white man. So if you're a white man and
29:50
you believe that, it's because you are... living
29:53
in a system of beliefs that tells you, I'm superior.
29:58
I am the one who can access certain things. So
30:02
they relied on, I would say, an opposite colonialism,
30:07
or they took advantage of colonialism. So that
30:11
was so bad for Nigeria's image that Nigerian
30:16
government put out ads on European newspapers
30:20
saying... If it's too good to be true, it's because
30:24
it's not true. And that kind of a scam relied
30:28
on greed. The only way to get an American or
30:33
a European to do that is because they're greedy.
30:35
They want money, they want fast money, and they
30:39
want it now. Now that changed in the early 2000s
30:43
for several reasons. And the main one, I would
30:46
say, suddenly we have social media. And with
30:50
social media came the internet cafes. Quickly
30:52
after that, we had smartphones, especially the
30:56
Samsung phones that became widely available in
30:59
a city like Lagos. So I would say around 2010,
31:03
2013, it started becoming a thing. It's true
31:06
that before they were already talking about Yahoo,
31:09
Yahoo. In the streets of Lagos, there are reports
31:11
about that, but it was mostly cyber cafes. And
31:14
that was more contained. You might have... dozens
31:19
of hundreds of cyber cafes, but still is limited
31:21
to the physical location of a cyber cafe. Then
31:25
suddenly you have phones and even a kid can get
31:28
a phone. Like in Lagos, they get a phone that
31:31
maybe 10 people have used before. It's a phone
31:34
that is almost unusable and they can get it for
31:37
$10. And in parallel, you have our societies
31:42
in the West, Europe, America, where We are all
31:47
engaged in this social experiment called social
31:51
media. And these tech companies are building
31:54
walls that are monetizing to an incredible success.
32:00
And suddenly, for all the reasons as well, people
32:04
feel more lonely. And these scams move from greed
32:07
to loneliness. And I think it just tells the
32:10
sign of the times. Probably because in the 90s
32:14
and early 2000s, it was all about optimism, about
32:16
capitalism. And then after the 2008 financial
32:20
crisis, suddenly we became quite lonely, also
32:24
because of the social media. So now I'm going
32:27
to explain how it works. Having said all this,
32:30
suddenly in the streets of Lagos, these young
32:34
men start receiving something that they call
32:36
scripts. And these scripts are guides. that tell
32:40
you how to scam a white man or a white woman.
32:44
And this is just circulating. It is circulating.
32:47
You can find them right now on the internet.
32:50
But there, they share it on the street. You know,
32:54
it's like your older brother is doing these scams
32:58
and you go to him. Can you give me, can you share
33:00
me a format? They call them formats. So it's
33:04
widely available. You need to understand that
33:07
the small boy who is doing these scams had no
33:10
idea about the atomization of the Western world.
33:13
But if you have your script, you just have to
33:16
copy and paste. It is just a matter of trial
33:18
and error. Now, a quick note here. These scams
33:22
don't only happen in Nigeria. They also have
33:25
been found a lot in Southeast Asia and in other
33:29
hotspots. Nigeria is also prominent because it's
33:33
a very popular, like a highly populated country.
33:35
You know, they have 200, 250 million people.
33:39
And they also have like a colonial history with
33:42
the Brits that in a way helped propose this industry.
33:45
So you have all these scripts, you have people
33:49
who are unemployed, and you have a massive number
33:53
of people who are unemployed. And you know, Sasa,
33:56
when... When a city becomes highly unequal in
34:01
the UK, in the US, and suddenly from one street
34:04
to the other, the poor people can see the rich
34:08
people. We all know, even conservatives, that
34:11
inequality, high inequality is bad for society
34:15
in the long run because it creates a lot of instability.
34:19
Well, actually, I'm sorry just to interrupt,
34:21
but I recently interviewed Luke Kemp, who wrote
34:24
a really good book, Goliath's Curse. where he
34:27
studied 500 cases of past civilizations, and
34:33
not only did he find out that inequality is bad,
34:38
because the optics are bad, it's actually the
34:40
main reason why these kingdoms and empires, from
34:45
the Roman Empire to the Mayans and so forth,
34:48
fall apart, is growing inequality. That is fascinating.
34:53
That is fascinating. I really recommend the book,
34:55
but I just wanted to plug this right now because
34:58
it goes much deeper than just optics, like I
35:02
said. Yeah, yeah. I mean, obviously for optics,
35:04
it's bad. But even if you are, let's say, a conservative
35:08
and you want to preserve what you have, inequality
35:11
in the long run is also proven to be bad for
35:15
stability. And I think what the Internet did,
35:18
and this has been widely reported and studied,
35:22
is just suddenly we are not living in one city
35:25
where we have to be aware of inequality in our
35:29
own country or in our own society. Suddenly these
35:32
boys or girls in West Africa, they have a window
35:35
into the riches of the Western world. So in a
35:40
way, what the Internet did was flatten the whole
35:44
world. And they could see how unequal the world
35:48
was. And that led the path to one of the reasons
35:52
why that they kept telling to me that the idea
35:57
that stealing $10, $50 from the white man and
36:01
from the white woman is not a lot of money for
36:03
them. While for the Yahoo boys might be survival.
36:08
Of course, you know, I also talked to many other
36:11
Nigerians who would say, That's a silly excuse,
36:14
whatever. I'm going to quickly go back to your
36:16
question. So they have these scripts and they
36:19
do trial and error. You know, you are a small
36:21
boy, 14 years old. You want to get $5, $10 to
36:25
buy a burger or whatever in Legos. And you have
36:29
no idea to talk to a white person. Might not
36:32
be white, but most of them are white, the victims.
36:36
And they just copy and paste, copy and paste,
36:39
copy and paste all the time. And as you can imagine,
36:42
when you do copy and paste, it doesn't work.
36:45
And the most sophisticated scammers realize that
36:49
each single conversation needs to be filtered,
36:53
needs to be personalized. That is why many of
36:56
the potential scammers never become scammers
36:59
because they might not be astute enough or they
37:03
might not think harder. But others who are more
37:07
intuitive, they learn. through practice. And
37:11
once you've talked to a hundred lonely people,
37:15
you start understanding that what they are looking
37:18
for is someone to acknowledge them, to see them,
37:22
you just have to ask them, how was your day?
37:26
And it is like the same way that chatbots now
37:31
act as a mirror. They just tell us what we want
37:36
to hear. Yahoo boys do the same. They scam both
37:40
men and women. And this is important because
37:42
the idea is that, you know, kind of like my mom,
37:44
right? Like a lonely woman who is so naive that
37:49
fell for this. Well, I even saw more scammers
37:53
scamming lonely men. Obviously, there is a difference.
37:57
A Yahoo boy told me men pay faster, women pay
38:01
for longer. It takes more time to get money from
38:05
a woman because they are very suspicious. With
38:07
a man, it's just a matter of, in their own words,
38:10
to get them horny. And maybe in 10 minutes or
38:15
in one hour, they tell them, if you send me $20,
38:18
I'll go to your home right now. And they are
38:21
impersonating a beautiful, a knockout woman that
38:26
might be, I don't know, like an actress, a porn
38:28
star. Instagram model. Yeah, yeah. Instagram
38:31
model, whatever. A truck driver or a lawyer might
38:34
send $20. Right. Well, like you said, $20 is
38:41
not a lot if you're in the U .S. or in Europe.
38:44
So this is how it works. It's these kind of small
38:47
sums. It's never like $200 ,000. It's not some
38:50
sort of intricate, long game that they're playing.
38:54
Or could that potentially happen? Because you
38:57
do have a character in the book that is... quite
39:01
guilt -ridden because a scam kind of went too
39:04
far, if I'm correct, and somebody on the other
39:07
side killed themselves. Yes, yes. So I'm going
39:10
to answer first to the initial, the first question.
39:13
All these boys, and again, I focus on a very
39:16
poor, struggling community. These boys, they
39:19
don't have the resources to pull off a $300 ,000
39:24
scam. That requires... laundering the money,
39:29
moving that money is not easy. Of course, that
39:31
doesn't mean that if you are a very smart kid
39:34
in this lab and you get a victim who might send
39:38
you that money, that doesn't mean that you cannot
39:41
start asking questions around you and suddenly
39:44
create like an informal syndicate with a friend
39:49
of a friend who lives in the States, a friend
39:51
of a friend, and you have created this structure
39:54
to launder that money. And this is important
39:56
because a lot of Americans who study these kind
39:59
of scams, they get it wrong. They think that
40:03
the Nigerian fraudsters are all part of syndicates
40:07
and they are not working on their own. And that
40:10
is a silly mistake because in a way, it doesn't
40:14
make the effort to understand the scammers. But
40:17
most of these young boys, they act alone. They
40:20
are just using their phone. So what they want
40:23
is a gift card. Because that is quick money.
40:26
That is the fastest way to scam someone and not
40:30
be caught. So I ask you, can you send me the
40:34
gift card of 25, 100, 200, whatever. I think
40:38
the highest is 200 or maybe 500. And they take
40:42
a picture. And once you have the codes, you go
40:44
to a vendor. That's how they call it. And normally
40:47
it's a Chinese vendor. And you resell those codes.
40:52
So if the gift card is $100, you might get $80,
40:58
$70. And why does a Chinese vendor want these
41:02
gift cards? Well, because they sell these gift
41:06
cards mostly in China to Chinese gamers who are
41:10
trying to bypass the great firewall that China
41:13
has erected in their internet. So if they want
41:16
to play in, let's say, Steam or whatever, they
41:19
might need these American gift cards. So in a
41:22
way, the money comes back home. Yahoo boys don't
41:24
know any of this. They just know because they've
41:27
learned that there are some people on the internet
41:28
who will buy these gift cards. So that is why
41:31
most of the times they get petty money, small
41:33
money. But having said this, you can scam a man
41:37
who is just hoping for a hookup. You can scam
41:40
him maybe $25, $50, $100. But there are other
41:46
relations, there are other scams that are for
41:48
the long run, both men and women, but mostly
41:50
women. So one character, before jumping to the
41:54
character you mentioned, scammed this Irish woman
41:56
around 80 ,000 euros in a period of four years.
42:03
And he said, he told me that it was all gift
42:05
card after gift card. So that's a lot of gift
42:09
cards. And he would splurge the money in hotels,
42:12
in clubs, in girls, you name it. Yeah, quite
42:15
stupidly. And he lost everything because the
42:18
community might be very poor. But oh boy, there
42:21
are certainly ways to blow that money very quickly.
42:24
Because around these boys, all the people create
42:27
structures or ways to extract that money from
42:31
this 90 -year -old boy too high on drugs to realize
42:35
what's going on. I think you also write in the
42:39
book that this Ikotun, the neighborhood that
42:41
you mentioned at the beginning, it's a very poor
42:45
area. But nevertheless, it's not a rare sight
42:48
to just see like a Mercedes Benz driving around
42:52
or somebody in like really nice, I don't know,
42:55
like designer clothes and stuff. It is not rare.
42:58
No, it is a neighborhood of contrast. It is a
43:01
neighborhood of contrast. And also, you know,
43:04
it might be that. minister a politician or a
43:09
businessman is just coming back to the hometown
43:12
or whatever but the the weirdest thing is that
43:15
who steps out of the car an 18 year old boy with
43:19
gold with gold rings in his hand and it's like
43:23
so obvious what he's doing well if i had money
43:27
at 18 that would be me yeah exactly rings and
43:30
like a gold mercedes -benz and i mean it is something
43:33
that happens It is something that happens across
43:35
cultures, you know, the idea of fast money to
43:38
young people. At the same time, it creates tensions.
43:40
But going back to your question, so there's another
43:44
character, Richie, who did a different kind of
43:48
scam. It was also sentimental, a relationship
43:50
with a woman in Kentucky. But rather than doing
43:54
it on his own, he lived in an apartment in Lagos
43:59
with five friends. And each of them is specialized
44:03
in one different thing. So, for example, Richie
44:06
was called the picker and he had to have victims.
44:11
He had to talk to victims. They were going to
44:14
use, not to steal money from them, but to use
44:17
them to be money mules. And I explain how it
44:21
works. Basically, you have this woman who was
44:24
called Teresa in America and Richie, this camera,
44:27
was talking to her. Teresa was working class.
44:31
She didn't have much money. And these guys were
44:34
scamming other people. So when the amount of
44:38
money gets high, you cannot buy gift cards. It's
44:42
getting harder. So they do Bitcoin. And what
44:46
they do is they have someone in America who is
44:49
receiving that money from the other victims to
44:52
her bank account. And again, it's different.
44:57
Your lover tells you, I'm in America, I live
45:00
in America, can you send me money to my American
45:02
bank account? That sounds more, you can think
45:05
that that might be true. But if they tell you,
45:08
can you send the money to a Nigerian bank account
45:10
or can you buy crypto? Oh boy, it's so clear
45:13
that this is a scam. That's why they engage these
45:17
money mules who might not know what they are
45:21
doing because they might think also they are
45:23
in a sentimental relationship. And that's what
45:26
Richie did with Teresa. He was using her to launder
45:30
tens of thousands of dollars. Now, she did it
45:33
for two years. And after that, things were getting
45:37
very messy. And Richie knew that Teresa's husband,
45:42
because Teresa had a husband, which complicates
45:44
things even more. He was very aggressive, the
45:47
man. So at some point, and in Richie's telling,
45:50
the story becomes very messy and convoluted at
45:54
some point. And Teresa, the woman, stopped replying
45:58
his messages. And he thought, well, the client,
46:02
because that's how they call their victims, clients.
46:05
The client has stopped answering. This is common.
46:08
I need to find another one. But because Teresa
46:12
had some money from other victims, he kept insisting.
46:15
He kept texting. He kept trying to talk to her.
46:19
Until one day, the husband sent him a picture
46:22
of this woman. in a coffin dead jesus and he
46:29
thought he thought trisa was dead obviously you
46:32
see that you think that the woman is dead and
46:35
he told me all of this in the first interview
46:38
we did so you were asking why do they tell you
46:41
these things well i'm not a psychologist but
46:46
you can you could clearly know you could clearly
46:49
tell that the guy was traumatized even though
46:52
He was still scamming. But he was not scamming
46:55
women. He was scamming men. So to give a hint
47:00
or to give something to listeners so they can
47:04
buy the book, I end up going to Kentucky to try
47:09
and find what happened to Teresa. Because it
47:12
was not clear to me what had happened. There
47:14
was no funeral notice. There were no news about
47:17
her death. She was supposed to be a woman who
47:21
was very present online. There was nothing. So
47:25
it was all very sketchy and weird. And I went
47:27
there to Kentucky trying to discern what had
47:32
happened. And I'm not going to reveal too much,
47:35
but I'll say that she was not dead. Oh, my God.
47:40
Plot twist. Holy shit. You had me all along.
47:44
And so somebody wanted. A bit of payback to these
47:50
scammers, I can imagine. Anyway, people, buy
47:52
the book. You're not going to be sorry. We're
47:54
going to put the link into the description. But
47:56
thank you for that. I mean, that's... It's important
47:59
because in the book, I follow four or five scammers.
48:04
But in one of the stories, I go to the other
48:07
side because that was my goal from the beginning.
48:10
Rather than telling this story from, let's say,
48:13
quote unquote, our side and then going to their
48:16
side, I just reversed the structure. So that
48:23
way I put the focus on them because we didn't
48:26
know much. about them and we wanted to see the
48:29
world through their eyes but also it was important
48:32
for me to turn the victim into a three -dimensional
48:35
character rather than a flat character as they
48:38
see the victims another aspect that you keep
48:41
mentioning is the drugs but drugs are not simply
48:44
used for enjoyment by these yahoo boys they're
48:48
also used so they can stay up and chat in a different
48:53
time zone that their victims are in oh yeah They
48:57
do a lot of drugs and they spend a lot of money
49:00
on drugs. As Chuke told me, one of the scammers,
49:03
to make money, you have to spend money. And that
49:06
is on hotels and on drugs. Why on hotels? Because,
49:13
you know, these hotels are also in Ikotun. They
49:15
are like a bit of like shabby hotel, but they
49:18
still have air conditioning. You have your private
49:20
room, your bathroom. And for most of these boys,
49:23
they are their home. is a very small room shared
49:28
with three or four people. So now, if you are
49:30
talking on the phone with a victim, how are you
49:33
going to convince them if you, as Shibuke says,
49:37
they have all sorts of animals around them? And
49:41
it's so noisy from kids and everything. It's
49:44
not possible to convince a woman that you are
49:47
a lonely man in Nebraska or whatever if they
49:52
hear animals. And that's why they go to hotels
49:56
and also they go to hotels to... Wait, sorry.
49:58
I just thought of this and I have Alzheimer's.
50:00
I'm going to forget otherwise. How are they...
50:04
I mean, they clearly... English is an official
50:07
language in Nigeria, but they clearly have a
50:09
Nigerian accent when they speak English. So how
50:12
are they recording audio messages for an American
50:15
victim? They even call them. Do they have some
50:21
sort of app that transforms your voice or what
50:24
is happening here? Well, this is an interesting
50:28
question because some of them, it's true, they
50:31
are good with accents and they might be able
50:33
to change the accent a bit. Rather than sounding
50:36
American, you know, when you hear an accent and
50:39
you're like, I cannot really tell where this
50:43
accent is from. But because you're an accent,
50:46
it's very strong. It's very heavy. It's a beautiful,
50:49
beautiful accent. But you can tell right away,
50:53
these guys are not American. The other thing
50:55
I would say is that some of them, they don't
50:58
change the accent. And that's nuts. And that
51:01
is nuts. That tells you, that tells you, that
51:03
tells you, and this is the main goal of the book.
51:07
You know, some of these people are very hardworking
51:10
in their own trade. Many Nigerians are hardworking
51:13
in legit ways. But what I'm telling you with
51:16
this is that how lonely we are that we believe
51:21
a young man talking to us in Nigerian English.
51:27
So the whole book, the idea of the book was to
51:30
show the real lives of the scammers. So we demystify
51:35
them. And we see that these are small boys who
51:38
might be very clever and very smart, but they
51:40
are who they are. They are from Islam. They are
51:44
not like a part of a dangerous mafia. They are
51:47
masterminds. They are who they are. And I think
51:50
that it might reveal more about us than about
51:52
them. Right. So it's sort of like an intersection
51:57
of this harsh economic reality on one side and
52:02
the crippling loneliness epidemic on the other
52:05
side, right? That's fascinating. By the way,
52:09
I know you don't have any sort of stats or anything,
52:11
but from observation, what would you say is the
52:14
success rate? of these how many people like did
52:19
the boys give you any sort of very very low very
52:22
low you know they have they even have a word
52:25
to catch uh victims they call it bomb bombing
52:29
so they would say now i'm gonna head off to unbomb
52:32
basically means getting your phone and start
52:35
adding people start sending messages and maybe
52:40
i don't know this is just uh ballpark number
52:45
but maybe they send 100 friend requests and they
52:49
send 100 messages they get 10 people replying
52:53
to those messages and only one or two might be
52:56
susceptible of sending money so it is a it requires
53:01
a lot of time hence the drugs going back to to
53:05
your previous question not only because You have
53:08
to work. You have to scam at night because of
53:11
the time zone in America. You have to be with
53:13
your phone all day. They smoke because they believe
53:16
that that way they are not going to be distracted.
53:18
They smoke because they can stay awake at night.
53:21
And surprise, surprise, the more drugs you do,
53:25
the lesser the effect. and more drugs you have
53:30
to consume. So you move up to more powerful drugs.
53:34
And in the end, that has devastating consequences.
53:38
But yeah, the success rate is really low. And
53:41
many of them would say, MAGA is not paying me.
53:44
MAGA is how they call their clients, their victims,
53:48
because it means fool or gullible. And others,
53:53
they just... realize it's not for them because
53:58
no one is replying to their messages and even
54:00
some of them think that there is some sort of
54:03
black magic juju as they call it involved because
54:07
they cannot understand how the people who are
54:09
getting money are doing it you know imagine you
54:13
and i started scamming people online and we don't
54:16
get any money from them we wonder how these people
54:19
doing it and There are so many ramifications
54:24
here. I could talk for hours. What's Yahoo Plus?
54:28
Okay. So we were talking about some people thinking
54:33
there is some sort of black magic juju involved.
54:38
Because there is something supernatural behind
54:42
this scam, right? You just think about this.
54:46
Someone from Aslam in Lagos with no money and...
54:51
Some of them know university education. They
54:54
might have gone to secondary school. They are
54:57
able to get money from an American or a European.
55:01
And, you know, they're scamming a working class
55:04
in America. But I've also seen scamming a lawyer
55:06
who was making $40 ,000 a month. $40 ,000 a month.
55:10
So my mom was a dentist. So they are not only
55:15
scamming. people with no education in the US,
55:18
etc. It's coming, most of them, lonely people.
55:21
What I want to say with this is that there is
55:24
something that defies comprehension, the whole
55:29
scam. And many people in Lagos who are not aware
55:35
of the loneliness epidemic in the West or how
55:39
lonely we are, they just cannot fathom that someone
55:43
would send you money. because of some text messages.
55:46
They just cannot understand it. So they revert
55:48
to some sort of supernatural explanation. There
55:53
might be something behind this beyond what they
55:57
are doing. At the same time, some of the Yahoo
56:00
boys, the small boys, they also believe that.
56:03
And the same way I said before that if in the
56:08
community you have these scammers and around
56:11
them The whole community creates ways to siphon
56:15
the money out of them. You have local priests
56:19
or juju priests or herbalists, as they call them,
56:25
who say, if you come to me, we are going to do
56:30
a ritual. We're going to do something that might
56:33
help you get money from your client. That is
56:37
Yahuplas. When you use supernatural forces, might
56:42
be some sort of syncretism, but normally like
56:47
local spiritual work. And we will convince the
56:52
victim to send you money. And from there, it
56:56
can only get darker, you know, because you have
56:59
obviously the very benign things where the local
57:03
herbalist asks the scammer to bring a picture
57:07
of the victim and they do a ritual, whatever.
57:10
But then suddenly there are like reports of young
57:14
men who also bring the underwear of their girlfriends
57:17
or their mothers. And also you have stories that
57:21
are just, to be honest, hilarious because once
57:26
they do that, the herbalists, and I've talked
57:28
to herbalists, they've told me, they told me
57:30
these things. Once they do this kind of ritual,
57:33
they say, there are certain things now you cannot
57:37
do. Otherwise, the whole world will go against
57:40
you. And for example, a local car dealer told
57:45
me that, you know, car dealers are very good
57:48
to see the effect and the consequences of the
57:51
money that is coming because they deal with y
57:54
'all boys all the time. And he, one car dealer
57:57
told me, yeah, I had this boy who wanted to buy
58:01
a Lexus, maybe like 6 ,000 euros. So you can
58:05
imagine it was a very old Lexus, but still. A
58:08
crazy amount of money there. And before buying
58:12
it, he calls his herbalist and asks him, can
58:16
I buy a yellow car? Because there are certain
58:19
colors after doing this sort of spiritual work,
58:22
they cannot engage with. They cannot wear yellow
58:25
or red or whatever. They cannot have a red car.
58:28
And it's actually hilarious. So many people in
58:32
Nigeria believe this actually doesn't work. That
58:35
is just... Another group of people scamming the
58:39
scammers. Another scam. Yeah, another scam. Other
58:43
people believe that actually it is true and that's
58:45
why you get so much money. In the case of Chibuke,
58:48
one of the main characters who got 80 ,000 euros,
58:51
some people around him... believed he had done
58:55
some juju because they couldn't understand how
58:58
a woman would send so much money. And Tibuque,
59:01
when I asked him, did you do any juju? And he
59:03
said, if I had done it, I would have gotten millions
59:06
of euros. But they all have this perception that
59:10
if you do these kind of shortcuts, you're also
59:13
trading your future life. So it is all quite
59:17
supernatural. On an individual Yahoo Boys level,
59:20
From listening to you, it seems like quite a
59:23
grind then. You're sending hundreds or thousands
59:26
of messages into the void and nothing comes back,
59:30
usually. Sometimes something catches on. So I
59:34
can imagine that this is not the most glamorous
59:38
type of work. can be pretty boring. And probably
59:44
a lot of people are like, fuck this. I don't
59:45
want to do this. This is boring. It is, you know,
59:49
it is. It is because if you think what they are
59:52
doing, it's quite devastating. But at the same
59:54
time, you're just spending time with your phone.
59:56
And I remember being with maybe there were like
59:59
10 of them and we were having drinks and they
1:00:02
were smoking weed. And at some point, maybe 7
1:00:05
p .m., everyone was just on their phone. And
1:00:09
it was not a glamorous scene. It's not exactly
1:00:14
good fellas. No, I couldn't even tell whether
1:00:17
they were scamming or not. And that's why sometimes
1:00:21
when I pushed Biggie about what he was doing,
1:00:24
I was like, are you proud of being a scammer
1:00:27
or something like that? And he was like, I'm
1:00:28
not a scammer. I am a brainer, you know? what
1:00:32
it takes to be, what it takes to scam someone
1:00:35
in the other side of the, in the other part of
1:00:37
the world. It takes so long because it's, he
1:00:40
talks about white people as if he was so annoyed
1:00:43
with them because sometimes he's like, in his
1:00:46
words, I have to put up with their bullshit because
1:00:49
it's not only that you are bombing, it's not
1:00:51
only that you are seeing what sticks on the wall.
1:00:56
You're also, you might be also talking to someone.
1:00:59
who said that he's willing to pay you. And maybe
1:01:02
they said they sent $10. But maybe you have to
1:01:05
talk to them for days about their lives in Kentucky,
1:01:10
in Dartmouth, in Madrid, wherever. And it is
1:01:15
pretty exhausting. And it might lead you to nothing.
1:01:19
So it's also, it's not a glamorous work, definitely.
1:01:24
And it also has consequences for them. It reminds
1:01:28
me, you know, I live in Tokyo and it reminds
1:01:31
me of the host or hostess club here, which is
1:01:34
completely legal. All right. It's kind of like
1:01:36
a date, a date thing. Yes. Most of it is because
1:01:40
I've talked to some of the people who actually
1:01:41
work as host hostesses or hosts is listening
1:01:45
to somebody's boring problems from work, being
1:01:47
an accountant, whatever, pouring drinks, telling
1:01:50
them that they're awesome and smiling at them.
1:01:52
Nothing more than that. But they also say it's
1:01:54
really exhausting. and really boring most of
1:01:57
the time even though it looks kind of glamorous
1:02:00
because it's part of the nightlife at first glance
1:02:02
um so i totally i totally believe that i just
1:02:05
have a couple of more questions yeah yeah go
1:02:07
ahead no don't worry any of the did any of the
1:02:09
boys kind of make it did any of them accumulate
1:02:13
all of this money or some of the money whatever
1:02:16
they made and and kind of make it out of ecotune
1:02:20
Or was it always the same story of splurging
1:02:23
it on drugs and cars and staying very much part
1:02:28
of this cycle? So most of the cases was the latter,
1:02:34
you know, because that's what they had learned
1:02:36
to do, especially in a very poor community. Maybe
1:02:39
in other parts of Lagos it was different. But
1:02:42
in the case of Chibuque, for example. $80 ,000
1:02:45
is a lot of money. And some of his friends, the
1:02:48
ones who were not taking advantage of him, because
1:02:50
many of them were. Even his girlfriend who stole
1:02:53
money from him and ran away. And that's included
1:02:56
in the book. So it's pretty devastating for him,
1:02:58
which is also kind of hilarious for a scammer
1:03:00
who is driving down the life of another woman
1:03:03
thousands of kilometers away. His girlfriend
1:03:06
destroys his own life. Anyway, a friend of his
1:03:10
was telling him, why don't you buy like a couple
1:03:12
of buses or a couple of taxis and you will have
1:03:16
a source of income that is legit. He didn't do
1:03:19
it because he thought that the money was... gonna
1:03:21
keep coming and he was attracting so much attention
1:03:24
it was that was the glamorous part you know it's
1:03:27
not it's not glamorous the job but it is glamorous
1:03:30
to spend money here in legos in tokyo everywhere
1:03:33
and it is very hard to find legit ways to spend
1:03:39
the money some of them do and that's why you
1:03:41
see a lot of boutiques you see clubs you see
1:03:44
certain businesses that you wonder Where did
1:03:48
they get their money? Even the music industry,
1:03:50
you have people going on the record. Without
1:03:53
the Yahoo Voice, it would be very hard to find
1:03:55
certain levels or certain singers because the
1:04:00
banks just, they don't offer credit. So in Ecotune,
1:04:04
it was very much the same story all over again.
1:04:07
But having said that, there were quite a few
1:04:09
of them. who avoided the scam altogether. And
1:04:13
I think this is also an important part of the
1:04:15
story. Maybe it was, not sure if I would say
1:04:18
a minority, but it was certainly a societal problem
1:04:21
where you have some part of the society really
1:04:26
against this scam, Yahoo, the Yahoo culture,
1:04:29
and other parts of the society that turn a blind
1:04:32
eye. Because the money was coming to Nigeria.
1:04:35
The money is coming to Nigeria. It's not only,
1:04:37
of course, You see it in the clubs. You see the
1:04:40
boys splurging the money. But the money is also
1:04:42
used for food, for school fees, for other things.
1:04:46
So they might not be investing the money wisely,
1:04:50
but that money trickles down and builds other
1:04:54
things as well. All right. So you introduced
1:04:58
your mother at the beginning. Fortunately, she
1:05:00
didn't get scammed out of any money. We met Trisha.
1:05:04
who we thought was resting in peace, but kind
1:05:07
of got resurrected. Is there a victim that you
1:05:10
did kind of talk to and hear their side of the
1:05:13
story, a victim that actually got scammed? Well,
1:05:17
Teresa, I did talk to her, you know? Okay. I
1:05:20
did talk to her. I won't go, but I will end with,
1:05:26
I talked to all the victims as well. They are
1:05:29
not much in the book, but I think the hardest
1:05:32
part of the book was, finding the right balance
1:05:36
between not glamorizing the scammers, but at
1:05:40
the same time, giving them enough humanity that
1:05:43
they look like you and me and they face complex
1:05:47
debates and they also have their own circumstances.
1:05:52
But I didn't want to flood the victims either,
1:05:54
because I think that sometimes with these cases,
1:05:57
they look at the victims with either condescension
1:06:01
or pity or mockery. And very important for me
1:06:05
was the moment where I realized that you cannot
1:06:09
really judge someone for being scammed. On the
1:06:13
surface, you can, right? Like you can laugh and
1:06:15
like, how is it possible that that man or woman
1:06:18
fell for this? And okay, but once, and this is
1:06:22
the important part with Teresa, once you go and
1:06:26
examine someone's life, and once you see the
1:06:31
things that happened, to Teresa's life or to
1:06:35
Chivuki's life or to my mom's life for them to
1:06:39
be scammed or become scammers, life becomes very
1:06:42
messy. You know, reality is always very tricky.
1:06:45
And with this, I'm not just passing judgment
1:06:49
on anybody. But at the same time, I don't think
1:06:52
that we are all just our circumstances. So I
1:06:55
think that's why it was hard to find the right
1:06:56
balance between the world we were raised in and
1:07:00
all the circumstances that surround us and our
1:07:03
tiny, small, free will we have to exert it. And
1:07:09
I think that that's also an important part of
1:07:12
the book because scammers have many forces pushing
1:07:17
them to the scam. But you have all the young
1:07:19
men in Nigeria who are also facing the same struggles.
1:07:22
And they know because their morality tells them.
1:07:26
Don't do this because it's bad for another human
1:07:29
being. You might not see them. You might not
1:07:31
acknowledge or suffer the suffering, but they
1:07:35
know it's bad. So you have all these elements
1:07:38
that tells you how messy reality is. And with
1:07:43
the victims, it's the same story. Once you go
1:07:45
deep into Teresa's life, once I went deep. A
1:07:49
whole world came out. And I think the same could
1:07:52
be applied to our own lives. Yeah, I read a couple
1:07:55
of reviews of your book. And out of many strengths
1:07:58
that they highlight, they say the biggest is
1:08:00
your radical empathy, which was on display here.
1:08:04
I wonder if it's because the bar is now too low.
1:08:10
No, I don't mean in publishing. I mean, I think
1:08:17
that... in general, probably created by the internet.
1:08:21
You know, the idea that the internet was going
1:08:23
to bring us closer and suddenly we were living
1:08:26
in the same world I was describing before where
1:08:29
it's all flat and we know about each other's
1:08:32
cultures. I have the feeling that we are going
1:08:35
backwards and even the effort to try to understand
1:08:40
why someone does something is described as empathetic.
1:08:45
While at the same time, When, let's say, far
1:08:49
-right white supremacist terrorists in the U
1:08:52
.S. kills 20 kids, the first thing the media
1:08:56
does is go to the family, go to see in which
1:08:59
specific point things went the other way. So
1:09:03
I just think that we have to give the others
1:09:07
the same amount of empathy, maybe, or the same
1:09:12
amount of scrutiny that we give ourselves. Yeah,
1:09:15
you know, I have to post a lot of clips, smaller
1:09:18
clips from this podcast on like social media.
1:09:21
And it's kind of crazy the responses that people
1:09:25
have sometimes. You will see with some Nigerians
1:09:30
because this topic drives Nigerians crazy for
1:09:33
both ways, you know? Like I have Nigerians who
1:09:36
come to my Twitter account and tell me, what
1:09:39
are you doing? You're justifying the scammer's
1:09:41
actions and you cannot justify crime. But also
1:09:45
on the other side, you have people who are like,
1:09:47
why don't you write a book about slavery and
1:09:49
colonization and what the white man did to Nigeria?
1:09:51
And I'm like, read the book. Everything is in
1:09:55
the book, you know? Like, I understand your frustrations
1:09:58
with what people did in the past, but your set
1:10:03
of preconceived ideas is not allowing you to...
1:10:08
to learn in a different way or to have an engaging
1:10:13
conversation. Because if someone comes to you
1:10:15
like that, as you said, what is the debate we're
1:10:18
going to have? It's impossible. Yeah, totally.
1:10:22
Last question. Are you still in contact with
1:10:25
any of these boys? So all of them except Miracle,
1:10:28
because Miracle ran away with our Uber money.
1:10:32
With your Uber money. Yes, yes. Yeah. But yeah,
1:10:36
I'm in contact with all of them. For example,
1:10:38
Aziz, I mean, I tell this in the book, Aziz stopped
1:10:41
the scamming because his grandmother and his
1:10:44
mother forced him to stop. And again, these are
1:10:48
people who live in extreme poverty. So it is
1:10:53
very commendable, but at the same time, very
1:10:54
sad. And the others, they still engage in petty
1:10:59
scams. So yeah, I have people who are telling
1:11:03
me that I should do a book in 25 years time to
1:11:06
see where their lives are at. Carlos, this was
1:11:09
great. Thank you so much. The book is coming
1:11:11
out when? The book is coming out on Tuesday in
1:11:15
the US and on Thursday in the UK. We don't know
1:11:21
when exactly this is going to be published, so
1:11:22
please give us the date. It's going to come out
1:11:24
on June 9th in the United States with Farrar,
1:11:28
Estros and Giro. And on June 11th in the United
1:11:34
Kingdom. And if you are German, it will come
1:11:37
out in Germany in August and in Spain in... January
1:11:42
and hopefully at some point next year in Poland.
1:11:44
Awesome. And for any updates, follow Carlos on
1:11:47
Twitter, which we'll also include in the description.
1:11:50
Thanks again. This was a blast. Thank you so
1:11:52
much. Thank you so much for listening. Please
1:11:53
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1:11:55
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1:11:57
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