The Nation Newspaper

Tag: yahoo-yahoo

  • EFCC, Yahoo-yahoo boys and rising ritual killings

    EFCC, Yahoo-yahoo boys and rising ritual killings

    Sir: There is a troubling trend: internet fraudsters popularly known as “Yahoo Yahoo boys” are on the prowl – and menacingly so. As if the crime of defrauding people of their hard-earned money under false pretense is not already too much, their greed and insatiable quest for ostentatious lifestyle have pushed them into other dangerous and violent crimes.

    Unsuspecting young ladies are being hoodwinked and used for money rituals; just as these bands of criminals get involved in kidnapping, banditry and arms trafficking. For them, it is money by all means and any means whatsoever. No scruples!

    This startling revelation was recently made by no less a personality than the executive chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ola Olukoyede, who stated that the country has lost over $500m in one year due to internet fraud.

    He, however, noted that the activities of internet fraudsters had evolved beyond online scams, warning that they were now involved in more dangerous crimes, such as kidnapping, ritual killings, banditry and arms trafficking.

    Last year alone, EFCC got over 11,000 petitions, investigated close to 9,000, and prosecuted nearly 5,000 cases despite the limited manpower of the agency. Even the criminals are becoming more daring and their politically exposed “colleagues” are not relenting in attacking the EFCC. So, for Olukoyede and his team, it is battle from all fronts, including simulated media ‘war’.

    Recently, people have criticised the EFCC for going after “Yahoo Yahoo boys”, but Olukoyede said such criticisms are coming from the perpetrators, their beneficiaries and few genuine people who do not understand the severity of the trending phase of Yahoo Yahoo crime.

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    “It is no longer just about scamming people. They are now into kidnapping, banditry, and ritual killings. Some of our investigations have uncovered horrifying details, including cases where young female victims were used for rituals. If we don’t act decisively, in the next 10 years or so, we may not have a generation we can confidently hand over this country to,” Olukoyede said.

    The EFCC helmsman stressed the need for the commission to be above board like Caesar’s wife. This, he said, accounted for EFCC’s commitment to internal cleansing; a policy that saw to the sacking of 27 commission staff members early this year over corruption allegations.

    The EFCC chairman urged the media to play a more active role in shaping public perception of the commission’s work, advocating investigative journalism that highlights both corruption and the agency’s sterling achievements.

    “The media has always been a key player in the anti-corruption fight. In the early 2000s, before the EFCC was established, it was journalists who exposed many financial crimes. We need to return to that era where the media and law enforcement work together to protect the country,” the anti-corruption czar said.

    The nefarious activities of the “Yahoo Yahoo Boys” are inimical to the progress and development of this nation. Lives of youths – the most productive segment of the nation’s population – are cut short in their prime, apart from the international opprobrium visited on Nigerians abroad, where every carrier of the green passport is assumed to be a fraudster.

    Perhaps, it is time to advocate more severe punishments, like life imprisonment, for anyone involved in internet fraud and other crimes like kidnapping, banditry, and ritual killings. It is not enough to confiscate the proceeds of crime and sentence them to years of imprisonment. Or, is it not said that desperate times call for desperate measures?

    •Tunde Nasiru,Journalists Against Corruption (JAC), Abuja.

  • ‘Yahoo-Yahoo’ schools

    ‘Yahoo-Yahoo’ schools

    •It’s high time the government paid serious attention to cybercrime

    Alarmingly, internet fraud, known as ‘Yahoo-Yahoo,’ is prospering in Nigeria in ways that were perhaps previously unimaginable. Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Ola Olukoyede recently provided insight into the scale of its growth. Quoting the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), he said: “Nigeria’s yearly loss to internet fraud amounted to over $500 million. In one year!”

    He added that more than 71 percent of Nigerian businesses fell victim to cybercriminals in 2022 alone, and Nigerian banks lost over N8bn to electronic transfer fraud in the first nine months of 2022.

    He supplied more stunning information, telling journalists that the agency had discovered that “in almost all the states of Nigeria, all the sub-nationals, we have what we call ‘419 training schools’ where they harvest our children from primary schools.”

     It is noteworthy that ‘419’ refers to Section 419 of the Nigerian criminal code, which criminalises obtaining money from people by pretence or impersonation, cheating, falsification, counterfeiting, forgery and fraudulent representation of facts. ‘Yahoo-Yahoo’ is considered an offshoot of the so-called ‘419’ business of the 1980s and 1990s.

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    According to the EFCC boss, “When they leave school, they end up in some of these ‘419’ training schools. They start indoctrinating them. These are facts. They even ask their parents to sign an undertaking. After that, they induct them and some of these fraudsters start paying their school fees and indoctrinate them into cybercrime; as young as they are… Even children of those from wealthy homes are doing it now. It’s a trend!” 

    Indeed, this is a corrupted approach to the concept of ‘catch them young.’ The question must be asked: How did Nigeria get to this point? It indicates a disintegration of the structures of socialisation, including the family unit, educational and religious institutions. It also demonstrates how the country’s youths have been negatively influenced by actors in the structures of power, many of whom flaunt unexplained wealth.

    In a viral video that drove the point home, the EFCC boss recounted the case of a 17-year-old undergraduate student of History who was being investigated for internet fraud. “He’s not doing anything science. The guy sat in my office in Lagos and demonstrated some things to me on my laptop. He asked for my mobile number, through my number he got my BVN (Bank Verification Number). He now mentioned the name of my account number to me and the bank, and I didn’t tell him anything.”

    He said the agency had created a cybercrime research centre where ‘Yahoo-Yahoo’ convicts would be trained to use their Information Technology (IT) knowledge and skill positively. This is a commendable intervention. 

    Olukoyede likened thriving internet fraud in the country to “sitting on a keg of gunpowder,” saying the commission could not “close its eyes to that kind of situation.” He described the agency’s focus on cybercrime investigation and prosecution as “rescuing the future of Nigeria.”

    Signs of the undesirable growth of internet fraud were noticeable when, in 2019, the then acting EFCC chairman, Ibrahim Magu, lamented that there was a group in the country called Association of Mothers of Yahoo-Yahoo Boys, formed by the mothers of cyber criminals, who justified their children’s unlawful activities with the argument that they were supporting their families in place of irresponsible, runaway or dead fathers.

    The existence of ‘Yahoo-Yahoo’ schools nationwide is a new low formalising fraud. The situation demands greater action from the authorities against cybercrime. Such schools should be located, and shut down; and the operators should be arrested, prosecuted and punished, to serve as a deterrent.

    Thriving cybercrime gives the country a bad image. Law enforcement is crucial in dealing with it. This must happen based on a holistic approach that pays attention to contributory socio-economic factors.

  • Nigeria’s yahoo-yahoo academies

    Nigeria’s yahoo-yahoo academies

    SIR: Two incidents, all in February: First, operatives of  the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) arrested about 14 individuals suspected of internet fraud at a ‘Yahoo Academy’ in Makurdi, Benue State.  Items recovered included laptops, ATM cards, phones, one Forman generator and a Toyota Corolla car. In the Akure metropolis, the men of the commission stormed residential places, including student lodges, and arrested over thirty suspects including 14 students of the Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA) and 19 others for suspected internet crimes.

    According to the Head of Media and Publicity of the Agency, Dele Oyewale, operatives of the Commission from the Benin Zonal Command acted on intelligence in carrying out the operation which was carried out in the dead of night. Items recovered included ten exotic cars, phones, laptops, one motor bike. He pledged that the suspects would be charged to court as soon as investigations are concluded.

    Following the operation which was carried out around 3a.m in the night, the Students Union Government of FUTA strongly condemned the move which some students said they thought was kidnapping.

    It is common knowledge that internet fraudsters popularly known as ‘yahoo boys’ hardly sleep. The challenge is as real and as formidable as it has ever been. But the truth is even more frightening.

    They call it the streets or trenches or HQ or whatever else it is their young minds can conjure, there is a whole terminology for it. The game that is predominantly played across the internet features young people including children some as young as 14 and even younger. They crowd the internet space and maintain a constant lookout for unsuspecting people they nonchalantly refer to as clients. Their clientele include Nigerians but are predominantly drawn from pools of the unsuspecting across the world. Older demographics are favoured as long as there is liquidity and gullibility. But they don’t discriminate as long as the online client is willing to part with some money. This has become a uniquely Nigerian experience.

    Today, with Nigerians reeling from incalculable hardship as the economy repeatedly tanks, Hushpuppi’s trademark skill has spawned an army of acolytes distinguished as much by an aversion  to hard work as a voracious appetite for the good things of life.

    With the proliferation of mobile devices, Nigeria is witnessing what can simply be described as an epidemic of internet fraud of immeasurable proportions.

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    Internet fraud has become so common in Nigeria today that it is now the crime of choice for many  young people, as well as one of the most complex challenges facing law enforcement agencies in Nigeria.

    The fact that despite the operation and implementation of the  Cybercrimes Act by Nigeria’s  sometimes overzealous law enforcement agencies, cybercrimes in many forms remain a raging  problem calls for introspection.

    An entire generation faces an erosion and corrosion of its  core values  if nothing beyond detention and incarceration is done.

    It goes beyond feeding young, frustrated Nigerians into Nigeria’s insatiable prosecution machine. More than anything else, it is a matter of justice. The problem of internet fraud hints at a larger darker problem – poverty which manifests in unemployment.

    While there is no excuse for crime, the link between crime and poverty is a historical one. Nigeria would labour in vain if it thinks that it can curtail one without confronting the other. Tackling the root causes of internet fraud must begin from fixing poverty and unemployment among young people. Until this is done, what is already a massive problem will only grow bigger and bigger.

    •Ike Willie-Nwobu,

    Ikewilly9@gmail.com