John Paul Breslin, Scottish Mail on Sunday
July 27, 2024 18:20, updated July 27, 2024 18:37
Online videos show them posing in front of luxury cars, donning designer clothes and showing off their fortunes.
They are, in effect, modern-day billionaires.
But those who brag about their wealth and ostentatious possessions online have allegedly made their fortunes by manipulating, extorting and tormenting people – many of them children – all over the world.
Welcome to the world of Yahoo Boys, a mysterious Nigeria-based gang of gangsters and unscrupulous individuals who create false online personas and use them to target victims.
It is unclear how many criminals were involved, but just this week Meta shut down 63,000 accounts linked to the Yahoo Boys on social media platforms Instagram and Facebook.
Meanwhile, in Nigeria, police operations can result in as many as 37 arrests in a single day.
The suspects were made to pose for police photographs in front of a luxury car that was allegedly purchased with their ill-gotten gains.
In their hands they held laptops or mobile phones, tools of the illegal trade.
The Yahoo Boys are part of a global community of scammers who pose as young men and women online to trick people into sharing sexual content in order to extort money from them.
They are said to have sent friend requests and messages from fake or hacked female accounts to thousands of young people in the UK, US and Canada, in the hope of receiving dozens of replies.
Last December, 16-year-old Murray Dawe, from Dunblane, committed suicide after being the victim of a sex blackmail scam.
Police Scotland believe the perpetrators were based in Nigeria and what's worrying is that the methods used by these criminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated.
The Yahoo Boys have begun using AI to create so-called “deep fakes” to fool even the most careful internet users.
Over the past two years, criminals have been experimenting with deepfake video clips and video calls.
This technology allows people to change their facial features and voice, allowing them to look and sound like anyone they like.
According to US news outlet CNN, a Hong Kong-based financial worker handed over $25 million in February to a fraudster who used a deepfake to impersonate his chief financial officer.
And the problem is growing at an alarming rate: The number of global sextortion cases reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children doubled in 2023 from 10,731 the previous year to 26,718.
The Yahoo Boys are a key factor in global affairs.
The long-standing nickname comes from Yahoo, an email service that became popular in Nigeria in the 2000s and was used in scams along with other email providers at the time.
However, while the actors may share tips and tricks with each other, they are not a unified group of cybercriminals, but rather operate individually or in smaller groups.
According to a study by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), which works to identify and predict emerging cyber threats, Yahoo Boys are increasingly targeting teenagers in Western English-speaking countries through social media platforms.
“Specifically, nearly all financial sextortion attacks against minors involve taking screenshots of the victim's Instagram followers/following list and using that list as leverage to threaten to send intimate photos of the victim to all of those accounts,” the NCRI report states.
Little is known about the specific individuals behind the current surge in sex blackmail.
But the internet is filled with videos of people who allegedly made huge amounts of money from these scams, flaunting their ill-gotten gains and allegedly passing on information to other aspiring con artists.
The NCRI said glorifying sexual blackmail crimes is an established part of Nigeria's internet subculture.
Suspects are often identified when they are found living a lavish lifestyle with their source of income unknown.
Those arrested were found to be in possession of several luxury cars, including Mercedes-Benz, Lexus and Toyota, as well as expensive mobile phones.
This seemingly luxurious life is a temptation for many young people in poor countries.
Nigeria is currently experiencing its worst economic crisis in a generation, causing widespread hardship and anger.
According to the BBC, some people in the north of the country are now eating rice that would otherwise be wasted during the milling process or used as fish feed.
The head of Nigeria's National Cybercrime Centre (NCCC) defended the police's actions, saying they were doing all they could to crack down on the perpetrators.
He claims Nigerian teenagers are also being targeted and that the crime is not just a Nigerian problem, with sex blackmailers also present in Southeast Asia.
Therefore, he said a global effort is needed to address the issue.
Last month, he and his team visited the UK National Crime Agency to strengthen cooperation on sextortion and other cybercrime investigations.
But while governments and police around the world are tackling the problem, scammers continue to target vulnerable people.
One former Yahoo boy told The New York Times that the impact of their activities would not be enough to stop them, even if they had something like a conscience.
He confesses that he feels guilty about this act, but adds, “But I need money so poverty won't bother me.”
