Online scams create "Yahoo! millionaires"
 

:mad: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortu...ex.htm?cnn=yes

In Lagos, where scamming is an art, the quickest path to wealth for the cyber-generation runs through a computer screen.
By Leonard Lawal, FORTUNE
May 22, 2006: 3:28 PM EDT


(FORTUNE Magazine) - Akin is, like many things in cyberspace, an alias. In real life he's 14. He wears Adidas sneakers, a Rolex Submariner watch, and a kilo of gold around his neck.

Akin, who lives in Lagos, is one of a new generation of entrepreneurs that has emerged in this city of 15 million, Nigeria's largest. His mother makes $30 a month as a cleaner, his father about the same hustling at bus stations. But Akin has made it big working long days at Internet cafes and is now the main provider for his family and legions of relatives.


Call him a "Yahoo! millionaire."

Akin buys things online - laptops, BlackBerries, cameras, flat-screen TVs - using stolen credit cards and aliases. He has the loot shipped via FedEx or DHL to safe houses in Europe, where it is received by friends, then shipped on to Lagos to be sold on the black market. (He figures Americans are too smart to sell a camera on eBay to a buyer with an address in Nigeria.)

Akin's main office is an Internet cafe in the Ikeja section of Lagos. He spends up to ten hours a day there, seven days a week, huddled over one of 50 computers, working his scams.

And he's not alone: The cafe is crowded most of the time with other teenagers, like Akin, working for a "chairman" who buys the computer time and hires them to extract e-mail addresses and credit card information from the thin air of cyberspace. Akin's chairman, who is computer illiterate, gets a 60 percent cut and reserves another 20 percent to pay off law enforcement officials who come around or teachers who complain when the boys cut school. That still puts plenty of cash in Akin's pocket.

A sign at the door of the cafe reads, WE DO NOT TOLERATE SCAMS IN THIS PLACE. DO NOT USE E-MAIL EXTRACTORS OR SEND MULTIPLE MAILS OR HACK CREDIT CARDS. YOU WILL BE HANDED OVER TO THE POLICE. NO 419 ACTIVITY IN THIS CAFE. The sign is a joke; 419 activity, which refers to the section of the Nigerian law dealing with obtaining things by trickery, is a national pastime. There are no coherent laws relating to e-scams, the police are mostly computer illiterate, and penalties for financial crimes are light.

No penalties for breaking the law
"The deterrent factor is not there at all," says Thomas Oli, a Lagos lawyer, citing the case of a former police inspector general who was convicted of stealing more than $100 million and got only six months in jail.

"What do you want me to do?" Akin asks in pidgin English, explaining why he turned to a life of Internet crime. "It is my God-given talent. Our politicians, they do their own; me, I'm doing my own. I feed my family - my sister, my mother, my popsie. Man must survive."

The scams perpetrated by Akin and his comrades are many and varied: moneygram interceptions, Western Union hijackings, check laundering, identity theft, and outright begging, with tall tales of dying relatives and large sums of money in search of safe haven. One popular online fraud often practiced by women (or boys pretending to be women) involves separating lonely men from their money.

Attempts to speak to government officials about Internet crime were futile. They all claimed ignorance of such scams; some laughed it off as Western propaganda.

But last November the Economic Fraud and Financial Crimes Commission won a high-profile case that had dragged on for years against Emmanuel Nwude, who pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 25 years for bilking a Brazilian bank out of $242 million using an Internet scam involving phony bank drafts. The commission is also pursuing a case against 419 kingpin Fred Ajudua, a lawyer and businessman accused of using the Internet to steal $1 million from a victim in Germany.

Some officials, who asked not be identified, said young people are drawn to Internet crime as a way of getting back at a society that has no plans for them. Others see it as a form of reparation for the sins of the West.

Or as Akin puts it, "White people are too gullible. They are rich, and whatever I gyp them out of is small change to them."

I need to move to Lagos

fuck it... he's hustlin'. As long as he don't get my cc info, he straight.

Wow, they got a nice little scam going there.

we should shut of the pipe to nigeria . . end of problem

what a born hustler... at 14 and providing for his entire family... god damn

Someday he will...

goddammit...

kudos to the Nigerians, they have balls and they have brains, all they need is a government to channel that in the right direction ............ the sad thing is all the countries in Africa need exactly that

Nice responses to this story, tells me what kind of biz this is lol.

Can you really criticise him?

He's 14 living in a third world country and providing for an entire family.

Now the guys at the government or even the one that takes the 60% cut from whatever kids make those are the real criminals.

Damn, that's some hardcore shit, fucking a bank out of $242 million?

yea, no kidding, half the people here would fuck you too, if they were sure they would get away with it...

if my family was living in poverty like that.... i would also do whatever it took provide for them.. not like hes killing anyone

when he ruins your credit im sure you wont be so understanding.

balls & brains?

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

a fucking monkey could jack cc's & hock laptops

these aren't hackers....their chumps, little monkey bitch chumps....screwing old ladies out of their visa credit lines

I hate 419 spam, filling my mailboxes , what a waste of time

fucking scammers

I'm trying to get a business up and running, barely making it and some 14 yr old who steals credit card #s and sells stolen shit is way better off then me. Fuck that sucks...

I would simply put a bullet in that little shit's face if I ever saw him.

Unbelievable.

Not nice for the people getting ripped off. But at least this kid is not roaming the streets robbing people at gun point.

the amount of idiots online who fall for this shit, or the guys making the $ off it?

bullshit.. most of those guys don't make shit.. check out some anti-419 scam sites.. 419eater.com interviewed few of those and they say they don't make more than few thousand a year.

:thumbsup :thumbsup

14 year old chumps....

At 14 I was still building my first QBasic BlackJack game.

If they are talking about figures in the 1/4 billion dollar mark already - what will they be doing in 10 years?

Come on guys. we all know that this is not a real issue. The real issue on the internet that needs to be stopped, and the people put in jail, is the law abiding pornographers. They MUST be stopped at all costs!

The only really interesting part of this thread is how many people think ripping people off is fine if you can get away with it and need the money badly.

People think crime is cool as long as they are not the victims of it.

Im not saying its ok - but if at 14 you where the head of your VERY poor household that couldnt afford to eat most days and someone came along and offered you western style cash, what would you do?

Every single one of us would take the cash.....

ALot of idiotic responses in this thread.

rotting in a shallow grave

Born hustler my ass.. Anyone of you can do it.. Just the simple fact of the Secret Service stopping at your house makes you think twice.

I hate fucking scammers, we get them alot on ebay...they purchase via paypal, and as soon as their item arrives they charge back. Fuck you 3rd world scum bags!!

Ok so when he rips you off don't bitch. Personally he should be shot. His family would have one less mouth to feed. More money for eveyone else. His family is dirt poor but doesn't stop momma and daddy from fucking and making more babies.

Says GatorB from his 1st world home and his 1st world life.

Spend 10 seconds in the life of someone not as fortnate - I would do anything to protect my family and lifestyle.

I am as honest as the day is long - but I can afford to be.

Well hopefully your family gets ripped off so bad by some kid so you can see what it feels like to live in a 3rd world country. Then you can become a scammer to protect them.

Scamming people is scamming people, I could give a fuck how poor they are.

well, lets see, the Nigerians are moving drugs in almost all the countries in Latin America, South Africa, Europe, Asia, hell yeah, that takes HUGE balls

what was the last 'ballsy' thing you did? let me guess - you ordered extra jalapeno on your pizza

I've been less fortunate buddy. Not Africa type of less fotunate, but I've been there. I've worked at minimum wage jobs job cleaning shitty toilets and had to be on food stamps. Because I've raised myself from that HONESTLY, I've got some sort of problem? Yeah I've got a problem alright.

1st world life? I'm a single dad raising a son with no help form his mother because she a meth addict whose only "job" is literally selling her ass for drugs. Well she isn't now because she's in jail, but when she gets out next month she'll be back at it.

Last ballsy thing i did? hmmmm

I fucked your mother without a condom :thumbsup

I strongly advise you, my dear kunt, to leave my mother out of this

Damn..scammed by a 14 year old..Their laws need a overhaul

The whole country does. A very, very scary place. I nearly went out there to run a project quite a few years back and the security I would have needed to be safe was frightening.

It's a dog eat dog world. As long as there is poverty and corruption, there will be scammers.

stupid nigga kid, he should be promoting ransomware instead

Fuck, $100 million and you spend 6 mos in jail? Fuckin A. Count me in. I'll do my fucking time and live happily ever after.

Yes, first world life. You had food stamps to keep you from starving, so you had a choice.

Would you steal if your son would starve otherwise?

nigers only known for oil and scams

hopefully they'll be dead or in jail.

damn nigerians are good for nothing.