Article about parents of scammers in Nigeria

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Baiting Guru Joined: 03 May 2007 Posts: 18313

From here: http://thenationonlineng.net/web3/saturday-magazine/special-report/26946.html

Quote:

How some parents turn blind eye...
Olatunji OLOLADE, Assistant Editor 05/02/2011 03:03:00

Pa Michael Oginni likes the Chrysler best. Every second he spends in the vehicle’s backseat – ‘owner’s corner’ in his parlance – counts like "a pilgrimage to Eden," he revealed. There is a collapsible wine holder in the back; a cigar rack and a refrigerator to impress. The wheels make no noise. They turn over so fast; still it takes about 10 minutes to see him glide past. On an empty street.

Forget the showboating; the retired mason is getting his due. So he claimed. "Mo njeun omo ni. Eni to ba ni nma jee ni o ni ri aye gbe, oun ni o ni jeun omo," meaning: "I am reaping the fruits of parenthood. Whoever says I shouldn’t, would never live to enjoy the fruits of their labour," he cursed.

Too much anger reverberates in that diatribe. Perhaps it’s because of the rumours making the rounds in their Orile-Agege, Lagos neighbourhood. Neighbours allege that the widower and father of four has cast wisdom to the winds. For the love of money.

At 68, tired and jobless, it’s difficult not to indulge in the enjoyment of such random pleasures as his last child, Dele’s sudden wealth. The 19-year-old high school drop-out, previously acclaimed as the family’s only black sheep, has suddenly become the apple of Pa Michael’s heart, and the darling of his siblings except the family’s first child.

And the reason is not far-fetched: Dele, in the wake of a series of delinquent sprees that got him arrested by the police severally, absconded from home. "That was after he connived with our landlord’s only son to sell the father’s house; the same house we’ve been living as tenants for the past eight years. Their plan backfired and the landlord invited the police," revealed Ibukun, the family’s first child.

Dele never returned home despite the fact that Ibukun, his eldest sibling, was arrested in lieu of him by the police. Ibukun spent a month and one week behind bars until the landlord decided to budge to pleas by their father and co-tenants on condition that the Oginni family moves out within one month.

Two weeks after the ultimatum lapsed, the landlord was threatening to throw the family out with the aid of thugs he keeps on a payroll, primarily for such task. It was at that period that Dele returned home from his self-imposed exile.

Blatant chagrin metamorphosed into awe. And then, joy. Dele, an unrepentant menace to the neighbourhood, returned in a gust of triumph. A Toyota Seqouia Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) bearing him in the backseat, and closely followed by a fleet of four including a BMW X6, a Ford Explorer and a Mercedes Benz hard top convertible cruised into the neighbourhood amid a sea of stares.

Jaws dropping and eyes bulging, Dele’s family, their co-tenants and the landlord, trooped out of their two-storey building to welcome the "miscreant" some swore to arrest at sight. It’s five months since he returned, and the Oginni’s landlord is yet to eject them. The landlord’s son has found use as his driver and most trusted side-kick, among other uses. And the 19-year-old’s family has discovered in him, a Messiah of sort.

In the house of Ogbeide, every child is a "breadwinner," according to their father, Chinedu, 52, a retired insurance broker. Cordelia, his wife and an hotelier, corroborated him affirming that their three kids consistently give them "enough reasons to be thankful." Obinna, 29, Chinonso, 24 and Cordelia, 20 in deed, give their parents ample reasons "not to toil anymore."

Investigations revealed that following Obinna’s "good fortune" two years ago by an internet con, the Ogbeides’ fortune enjoyed a drastic change. His father shut down his car wash business to become a stay-at-home dad and "manager" of his son’s affairs. Cordelia, on the other hand, enjoyed a remarkable fillip; courtesy of her son’s intervention, her modest eatery and pub business metamorphosed rapidly into a well established hotel enterprise.

"Enemies will always talk. They always strive to condemn God’s mercies wherever they see it. But they have failed. They will always fail. I am yet to see that fellow born of a woman who would look at me in the eyes to tell me that my children are thieves. I will get that person arrested. I will take legal action against such person because they will have to prove their malicious rumour," Cordelia threatened.

According to Chinedu, "People can say whatever they like. If it were their kids that have come by such fortune, will they hand them over to the police? My children are not thieves. They did not rob anyone neither has anyone come out to accuse them of any crime. I dare anyone to come out and prove that they are criminals. My children are not criminals. You need to go home to understand how respectable they are and what paces they have set in our ancestral home and neighbourhood. Whether you like it or not, they are a pride to the family and the people of Arondiziogu (In Imo State)."

Tabitha, 51, is a retired nurse and clothier. And she is the proud mother of Olu Ayeni, a 30-year-old internet fraudster. These days both mother and son take it upon themselves to drum it into anyone’s ears that Ayeni is everything but an internet fraudster (known in local parlance as Yahoo-Boy). It is their carefully contrived defences that are interesting to hear. While Tabitha indomitably impresses upon anyone that cares to listen that her son is a successful contractor – put more precisely, a dealer in cement and other building materials, Ayeni proudly explains his rise from grass to grace claiming that he started travelling across the nation’s borders at a very early age to deal in cars. "People don mara (Folks could be crazy). Won ki nsogba won, igba onigba ni won ma nranju mo (They do not mind their business; they love poke-nosing into other people’s affairs). I am a car dealer. And I can prove it. Na wetin I dey do since I turned 18," he said.

But when the reporter reminded him of an interview he granted two years ago on a rainy night in October, Ayeni practically blew his lid and requested that the reporter vacate his tastefully furnished living room.

Two years earlier, Ayeni obliged the reporter a no-holds-barred narrative of his rise from grass to grace, with pride, in the middle of an October downpour; outside the garage of his favourite hang-out, a popular bar in Maryland, Lagos. Predictably, it was a classic story of a boy who grew up within the poverty lines of Festac, a Lagos suburb.

Ayeni, the last child and only son of a family of five, narrated how he learnt to suck up to more privileged peers in school and his neighbourhood and more importantly, how he learned to "suck it up" (endure the pain) every time his wretchedness was flung at his face.

The numerous nights he went to sleep hungry, and his disappointment over his parents’ many failed promises to him – like their inability to enrol him in an elite high school in the neighbourhood – inspired him to become rich, he explained.

Thus he chanced by instant wealth "at the age of 19," courtesy of his first exploit in the world of cyber-con. The 30-year-old subsequently, quadrupled his take from the con that got him his first million – precisely N1, 248, 000 at the period.

Three weeks ago before he granted the reporter the interview, he claimed he made $47, 000 (about N5 million) from a fresh "hustle" (an advance fee scam) he had been planning for four months. Unlike his first con, he didn’t have to split his taking with associates because he had since matured to operate "solo."

"Thank God, I’m now very, very rich…I don hammer," bragged Ayeni who was 28 years old at the period. "Gone are the days when I used to be shy in school and neighbourhood parties because I knew I would be the least dressed. Gone are the days when I used to run errands for my peers and smallies (younger peers) in the neighbourhood, for the crumbs they would throw my way when I’m done. If you must know, some of them now live off me. Those who looked down on me then are now worshipping me," he said smugly.

"Everybody calls us names. My childhood friend’s mother used to tell him to avoid me claiming I could put him in trouble but she never stopped collecting money from him…money I gave him. Now that I have trained him to work his own con, he is making a fortune. Among other frills, he has built a fishery for his mother with the money she never wanted him to touch. It is the same with every body. They criticise us and call us Yahoo boys, bad boys, fraudsters, and thieves. But no one has ever seen us rob. I don’t and would never do so. Although I dropped out of school, the knowledge I have can never be acquired in school. Ise opolo ni (it’s brain work)," bragged Ayeni, the college dropout who believed that scholarship is unduly overrated.

He still thinks so although he has since changed his story to epitomise a poor neighbourhood kid’s meteoric rise "through determination and hard work," to an enviable life of humility and affluence.

And "to protect him from malicious rumours and evil attacks by his detractors," his mother invites both Christian and Muslim clerics to hold special prayer sessions for her favourite child, only son and the family’s breadwinner. "Ogun laye yi. Eyan ma nra aye gbe ni (The world is a battle field, you have to be vigilant to survive it)," she said.

The breadwinners

Family and loved ones of advance fee fraudsters who prefer to be identified as "hustlers" usually see nothing wrong with the "hustle." And the reason is hardly far-fetched. Caught in the vortex of extreme socio-economic downturn, most families, particularly parents of wards involved in internet scams, have learnt to turn the blind eye to the activities of their wards.

More parents, as noticeable in the case of Tabitha, organise and embark on marathon prayer sessions seeking heavenly mercies and God’s protection for their wards. Some even embark a step further by taking their wards to traditional native doctors who are contracted to prepare charms for the children to protect them from the long arms of the law.

Thus, it is hardly astonishing, these days, to see an internet fraudster baiting his mark while adorning his neck with a live tortoise and muttering incantations intermittently, among other measures.

Friends and families of the scammers never find the latter’s activities illegitimate in their estimation as they provide endless justification for fleecing the marks (victims) of their loved ones’ con – usually justified as comeuppance for perceived and usually unsubstantiated wrong doing of the victims, especially if they are foreigners.

Spurious, far-fetched generalisations hinged on substantiating claims justifying their loved ones’ nefarious activities are ceaselessly projected on every front. While some maintain that their sons and daughters are only getting the edge over greedy and nifty foreigners, others argue that their wards are only taking compensations for past exploitations and iniquities visited on the nation by the nation’s colonial masters. It doesn’t matter what part of the globe the poor victims hail from; they are randomly considered guilty by association, as descendants of Nigeria’s past exploiters.

In the defence of the con

"Listen, these poor boys live in hardship. Most of them are graduates without jobs and undergraduates with little means of paying their tuition. At least they are not committing armed robbery or stealing from poor Nigerian citizens. How many politicians and bank managers have been prosecuted after being caught stealing from the public? They should leave the poor kids alone. They are only taking their due to guarantee a better future for themselves...Most of them, contrary to popular expectations, are investing money made in profitable investments. It’s their shield against oppression by children of the highly privileged and insensitive ruling class in future," argued Philomena a.k.a Philo, owner of a popular pub frequently patronised by Yahoo Boys (internet fraudsters).

Another sad scam story

Victims of advance fee fraud would no doubt share views contrary to those held by family and loved ones of fraudsters prowling the world wide web. Two internet fraudsters were recently arraigned at a Federal High Court in Lagos. They are standing trial on a two-count charge of fraud and obtaining money by false pretence. Trouble began for the duo that allegedly operated with two aliases, when a European embassy in the country petitioned the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) about perceived dubious activities of the duo.

The petitioner alleged that one of the suspects disguising as a lady met a national in her home country on the internet where both of them agreed to get married. The suspect promised the European that he (posing as a she) would relocate to France to meet him. But there was a snag in the arrangement: the suspect told the foreigner that he did a job in Nigeria for which his client had refused to pay him and therefore needed a lawyer to facilitate the payment.

He also claimed that he needed money to update his travel documents. Convinced that his new love was saying the truth, the European sent 25,000 Euros through Western Union Money Transfer to the accused persons before he realised that his dream lover and soul mate was defrauding him.

Then, there was Shane Symington, a Briton who sank into depression and debt after losing £130,000 in an internet scam involving Nigerian fraudsters. Symington described how an innocent acquaintance he formed with "Angela Gates" an American woman through MySpace, a social networking website, became a "nightmare" as he started doling out his life savings. The 32-year-old befriended Gates for several weeks in the spring of 2007 before she started asking for money to pay for her mother’s funeral and medical expenses.

The requests then graduated to financial assistance to foot legal fees so that the Gates could free up land that she had inherited apparently worth $2million. The requests continued through the year and in a short while, Symington had handed over his bank details and over £100, 000 to the fraudster and an additional £30, 000 to an associate who promised to help him apprehend his swindler.

"I feel sick from it all, I feel disillusioned. They have just played on my good nature. I’ve lost my life-savings. I have two loans and credit card debts. I’m in huge debts because of all of this…I’ve lost all the self-confidence in my life and I don’t have the money to go out any more. I’ve also had five weeks off with depression from work," revealed the Briton warning others to be extremely careful before handing money over to people they meet through the internet. "It’s just wicked people getting everything they can get out of people," he lamented.

A recent study by research firm, Chatham House, discovered that Nigerian scams cost the British economy about £150 million a year. But the cost to society goes beyond just losing money, claimed British police. Some victims had attempted suicide while others watched their marriages crash and their businesses go bankrupt.

Further findings also revealed that the Australians lose at least $36 million a year to Nigerian scammers, according to Detective Superintendent Brian Hay of the Queensland Police fraud squad, Australia. Hay disclosed that Australians send about $3 million a month to Nigeria of which at least 80 per cent was fraud-related. He said the problem is "far more extensive" as the police is "well aware" that millions of dollars go to other countries as part of the same fraud process.

Even Anne Fairbairn, award-winning poet and the only granddaughter of Australia’s fourth Prime Minister, Sir George Reid fell prey to Nigerian scammers who hacked into her online account after she replied a scam message purportedly sent to her by Yahoo administrative office. The message requested that she confirms her account details by sending her account details and password. The scammer, having gotten the information, went on to defraud friends of Fairbairn by posing as the poet to request financial assistance to the tune of $2, 500.

The war so far

Recently, the EFCC arraigned an Economics graduate of a Southwest university before a local High Court on a nine-count charge bordering on stealing and obtaining by false pretence. The accused allegedly obtained a total of $70,000 from two Americans in a marriage scam. However, the accused pleaded not guilty to all the charges preferred against him. The accused reportedly met the victims at a dating site while he was an undergraduate.

One of the victims allegedly told the accused that she was in need of a partner, and the accused didn’t waste time in positioning himself as Mr. Right for the lady. In one of the scam messages he sent to the victim, he allegedly profiled himself thus: "My parents are black Americans from Queens in New York, we are two from my parents, I am 27 years old while my kid brother Tommy Victor is 12 years old, and a student of Tennessee High School in Hollywood. I am 5.9 m tall. My hair is dark, my eyes blue, my parents stay in New York and I just graduated from the University of California. My father owns an oil company and I am now in charge of the company and my mother is a professional Nurse in NY."

To foreclose any doubt, he sent the victim a picture of a white couple he downloaded from the internet, claiming that the lady in the photograph was his late wife. He promised to marry the victim. No sooner did the victim swallow his bait than the accused allegedly moved in for the kill introducing phony businesses to the victim, which cost her over $30,000.

The accused allegedly presented himself as a woman to the second victim, with an offer to marry him. The victim not knowing that he was dealing with a scammer allegedly sent money to his ‘fiancée’ and lost $40,000 in the process. During interrogation, the accused reportedly confessed to the crime, but claimed that an associate who resides in Amsterdam, Holland was the mastermind of the scheme.

Recently, the EFCC claimed to have thwarted internet scams that would have left victims with losses running into N5billion. This was achieved during covert operations targeting cyber crimes activities in various parts of the country. In a particular instance, the anti-graft agency said that the covert operation codenamed, "Operation Cyber Storm", executed in collaboration with other international law enforcement authorities, enabled EFCC to intercept scam cheques valued at N5billion.

EFCC’s disclosure comes in the wake of a warning by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that the U.S. agency is spreading an international dragnet to arrest a Nigerian from the country’s Southeast region for allegedly defrauding US financial institutions of "tens of millions of dollars" by stealing the online identity of bank customers.

Meanwhile, EFCC said that most of the internet-based crimes reported in Nigeria are linked to advance fee fraud scams, a development traced to the proliferation of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and cyber cafes in the country. Subsequently, fraudsters started using online alternatives instead of the regular mail and fax to take their business to the global stage. These days, they have devised ingenious means to operate covertly from hastily built apartments on the city outskirts far from the searchlight of anti-graft agencies.

However, to effectively check advance fee fraud in Nigeria, the EFCC will need to do more than regulating the activities of Internet Service Providers (ISPs), cybercafés and telecoms service providers, noted Biodun Akinruoju, 38, a lawyer and private school proprietor. "The EFCC should also endeavour to beam its searchlight on the rural areas because Yahoo Boys are currently relocating to these areas where they hibernate and operate far from the purview of the law enforcement agencies," she said.

The agency may also need to establish and maintain joint multinational investigation and task forces to engender better understanding amongst international enforcement agencies in their collective battle to eliminate advance fee fraud. So far, EFCC has initiated partnerships with ISPs, telecoms, cybercafé operators and other stakeholders to develop due care guidelines to prevent the abuse of their facilities by scammers. The agency also works with courier outfits to disrupt illegal activities of scammers.

In conjunction with the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Centre, the anti-graft agency is currently able to block fraudulent email addresses and websites. Additionally, the Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), domiciled within EFCC, has been able to track online, all financial transactions in Nigeria in real time.

Despite these efforts, "hustlers" like Ayeni and the Ogbeide siblings continue to flourish in careless abandon with tacit and undisguised support of "thankful" parents like Tabitha and the Ogbeides to whom every successful con by their wards is a mercy from God.

Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2011 8:33 am

Thank you, Ima. It's a good look at what's on the other end of the tug-o-war we constantly battle. It sux that people would stoop to this level of craven opportunity. It does not suck that there are people such as us who are passionate about trying to make it so that there are no more victims. It may seem that I'm/we have a long way to go -- they've got a head start on us -- and we're one step behind. Only one step.

I'm passionate about that one step.

Edit: I can't spell. Smile

Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2011 9:50 am

Very interesting to see how they are thought of in their neighbourhoods/family.

Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2011 12:42 pm

It´s disgusting Sad

"My boys are better (than our local corrupt people), they steal from foreigners!"
Rolling Eyes

Al Capone´s wife also never cared where the money came from, she just enjoyed it.
I better not write anything more for the next hour or so, the above was as insightful as foreseeable (corrupt society down to the bone) and desillusioning...
I cannot understand scammers´ behaviour. What makes them better than, say, drug dealers?

Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2011 5:48 pm

^^Compared to scammers, I'd say drug dealers are honest entrepreneurs. You pay your money, you get the goods. The only 'goods' scammers have is their own greed.

I will barf now. Mad

Move over, Frumpy.

Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2011 5:48 pm

Another article here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1354155/African-fraudsters-make-80m-year-ripping-women-desperate-love.html, including this:

Quote:

The conman: I did it for four years and made £50,000

Reformed scammer Abayomi Aje admits having made more than £50,000 from cheating unsuspecting Western women.

The 24-year-old now runs a legitimate internet marketing business in Nigeria but has revealed how the scammers operate.

He said: ‘I was a scammer for close to four years and made well over £50,000. I have heard guys making as much as a quarter of a million pounds.’

According to Aje, each operator juggles a number of accounts and uses popular dating websites. Often the cover story involves a fake photograph of an American or British soldier and a stolen credit card. Almost all fraudsters are men.

Aje said: ‘Each person has as many as six women at a time. We would search through dating websites such as Yahoo! personals, match.com and singlesnet.com and create an account, usually with stolen credit cards.

‘The woman is, in most cases, desperate to get a man in her life. For those who are being a little difficult, you send a gift on a weekend with some nicely worded card. Once the victim has fallen in love, the next thing is to tell her you are going on a short business trip to any part of the world. You call the victim and be romantic with her on the phone. Then, after some days, you ask her for money giving her some sob story, like you were robbed or forgot your money.

‘She will either agree to send the money or, if she is really gullible, she will clear fake cheques or money orders for you. She may also be asked to receive wire transfers into her bank account.’

Aje says he ‘deeply regretted’ being involved in the scams and that most people involved had been desperate. ‘Most are from poor homes,’ he says.

‘I wanted to go to London Metropolitan University. I am sorry about everything that happened. I was a young boy who was misled by my peer group and under pressure from wanting to go to school at all costs.’

Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2011 8:01 pm

Thanks for the articles. Very eye opening.

One of the things that amazes me is how whole heartedly they claim to be Christians in their emails, yet have no problem ripping people off. I guess their interpretation of "Thou Shalt Not Steal" is different in their Bible than mine.

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