ANALYSIS: Despite Govt Clampdown, ‘yahoo-yahoo’ Thrives In Nigeria

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Joemiles
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Location: lagos
 

May 3rd, 2021, 12:59 pm

Hardly does a week pass without the EFCC parading young men for cyber fraud or some being jailed by the courts for the crime.
By Temidayo Akinboyo
The ‘Yahoo-Yahoo’ business, formally known as cyber fraud in Nigeria’s cybercrime law, is not a new phenomenon in the country.
The illicit business, mostly perpetrated by young men and sometimes women, is an offshoot of the so-called ‘419’ business of the 1980s and 1990s.
The 419 code is derived from a section of the country’s Criminal Act Section 419 (Advance Free Fraud) which frowns at obtaining money from people through pretence or impersonation, cheating, falsification, counterfeiting, forgery and fraudulent representation of facts.
Internet fraud has now been here for decades and does not seem to be declining in spite of the government’s efforts to stem the tide of the crime that has given the country a bad reputation.
On the global scale, PREMIUM TIMES reported how Obinwanne Okeke, a.k.a Invictus Obi, a trans-Atlantic cybercriminal, was jailed in the United States of America for 10 years for cyber-related crimes.
Before his arrest by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and subsequent prosecution and conviction, Mr Okeke was a rising star within the country’s private sector to the extent that he once graced the front page of the elite magazine, Forbes, as a young millionaire.
Until the bubble burst, only a few people knew Mr Obi, who had practically become a business coach to young folks, was into cyber fraud.
There are similar cases like that of Ramon Olorunwa Abbas, a.k.a Hushpuppi, and Ismail Mustapha, a.k.a Mompha, both Instagram celebrities, who are being tried in various courts for cyber fraud which has to do with business email compromise and money laundering.
How they operate
Cyber fraud, locally known as Yahoo Yahoo in Nigeria, takes various shapes and forms which have undergone evolution in recent years.
Boys involved in the illicit business have various ways of duping their victims – mostly foreigners. These range from romance scam, email phishing, business email compromise fraud, identity theft, impersonation, to generating bogus business transactions that look too good to be true and shady business deals running into millions of Naira, usually in hard currencies.
Some of the men involved in the illegal business often resort to seeking metaphysical powers from herbalists that they believe will enable them to hypnotise or control their victims for the time they are on their radar. This latter category of boys are called ‘Yahoo Plus’ boys or ‘G-boys.’
Their tools include laptops connected to the internet that runs almost on a 24-hour basis. They also have premium software exclusively for hacking purposes. Most of them live in secluded places, away from the prying eyes of the public.
When they are not at home, they use their mobile phones which are connected to mobile internet providers like Mifi to run their illicit schemes.
Resurgence of Yahoo Yahoo.
For some time now, hardly does a week pass without the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) parading young men for cyber fraud or some being jailed by courts for internet fraud-related offences.
In fact, it is almost a daily occurrence to the extent that some persons no longer pay any attention to it. It is now a sub-culture, an indication that it is the new normal, despite the country’s criminal justice system being stoutly against it.
As law enforcement agencies scale up their intelligence gathering to track those involved in the crime, the criminals have also learnt to up their games to avoid being caught.
There are also allegations that some of the Yahoo boys have informants within the country’s security agencies who tip them off to escape arrest.
Even though it is one crime the government seriously frowns at and has sent many young men to prison for, after prosecution by the country’s anti-graft agencies like the EFCC and ICPC, the number of young men recruited into the illicit activities seems to be on an upward swing in the South-west region of the country.
While a part of the South-west society seems to be against what they do, there is a new generation of cheerleaders who believe Yahoo boys are not doing anything harmful. This latter category, to justify their support for cyber fraud criminals, say Nigerian politicians do worse.
Yahoo Boys in the South-west
https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/hea ... geria.html

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Softie95
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June 14th, 2021, 7:38 am

How are we supposed to move forward ?
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