Two arrested in Nigeria for sextortion after Australian boy's suicide

Two people have been arrested in Nigeria over an alleged sextortion attempt against an Australian schoolboy who took his own life.

Australian police say the teenage victim had traded explicit images with a person online before they began making threats and demanding money.

After a global investigation, the pair allegedly responsible were tracked down in Nigeria, where they will face court.

Police say sextortion - particularly of young people - is dramatically rising.

Details of the boy's age or where he lived in New South Wales (NSW) have not been released publicly to protect his family's privacy.

New South Wales Police described the alleged extortionists as "young males" and said they had threatened to send photos to the teenager's friends and family if he did not pay them A$500 (£260; $330).

"The messages are horrific. They're aggressive and put a lot of pressure on the boy to pay the money," the police force's cyber-crime commander, Matthew Craft, told the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH).

The boy died by suicide on the same evening, late last year.

Australian detectives worked with their counterparts in South Africa and Nigeria to trace the suspected perpetrators to a slum in Nigeria with a population of over 25 million people.

Evidence that the pair had also tried to extort other people was found on their phones, according to the SMH. They have been charged over the alleged extortion of the Australian boy, but not his death.

There have been several cases in Canada and the US in recent years of teenagers who have killed themselves after being targeted by sextortion plots.

Det Supt Craft said his team had seen a "huge spike" in sextortion cases and has appealed for anyone targeted to contact police.

"[They] are up nearly 400% in the last 18 months," he said in a statement.

"We want young people to continue to report these cases, and to never be embarrassed to talk to police.

"Sextortion is a very real crime... These arrests in Nigeria show just how far police are willing to go to seek justice on behalf of our young community."

By Tiffanie Turnbull, BBC

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Hushpuppi sentenced to 11 years in US

Man charged in Nigeria over death of B.C. teenager in case of financial sextortion, RCMP say

A man is facing charges in Nigeria after a months-long investigation by RCMP into the death of a 14-year-old Surrey, B.C., boy who police say sent intimate images in a case of financial sextortion.

Mounties say the crime is a growing threat online that can have severe consequences for victims, who are tricked into sending images and then told to pay or send more pictures to avoid the images being distributed more widely.

"That threat to share these images ... can have devastating impacts such as self-harm and even suicide," said Sgt. Tammy Lobb at a media event in Surrey, a city in Metro Vancouver, on Tuesday.

"We need the public and parents to know and understand. We as police cannot fight this battle alone."

RCMP confirmed the teenager died by suicide. Police did not name the boy and the family has requested his name not be publicized.

On Tuesday, Surrey RCMP provided details of a sophisticated investigation into the death involving multiple international agencies, including the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, that led to the arrest of two suspects in Nigeria, with one being charged in August 2023.

RCMP said Adedayo Olukeye, 26, remains in custody in Nigeria and faces charges there including possession and distribution of child pornography, attempts at extortion by threats, money laundering and retention of proceeds of an unlawful act.
 

'He was an innocent child'

In February 2023, police were called to a residence in Surrey for reports of a sudden death involving a male youth.

Police said they quickly determined the 14-year-old had been a target of sextortion, in which he had been fooled into thinking a person asking for intimate images over Instagram and Snapchat was a teenage girl.

The perpetrator then told the boy to buy them gift cards to prevent the images from being distributed online, police said. The interactions were only minutes long, investigators added.

A statement from the family was read by Lobb at the news conference.

"He loved hockey and he loved life," it said. "Not a day goes by that we don't miss him. He was an innocent child who was taken advantage of due to his innocence."

Surrey RCMP said they want to use the case to show that law enforcement is willing to put significant resources into solving such crimes.

The force said it received 220 reports of sexual extortion in in 2022 and 302 in 2023, an increase of 44 per cent.

"Online child sexual extortion is a borderless crime and these offenders have direct access to our children by targeting them through their phones, mobile devices, computers and gaming consoles," said Sgt. Dave Knight with Surrey RCMP's Special Victims Unit.

"As police, we cannot fight these predators alone. We need everyone who works with children and youth as well as parents and guardians to get educated about how to spot the signs, have these conversations with youth in our community, and how to help our youth if they become a victim of sextortion."

Governments across the globe are scrambling to come up with ways to keep people safe from the crime and for images that are shared to be removed quickly.

At the end of January, a civil process was enacted in British Columbia that is meant to empower anyone to apply through the B.C. Civil Resolution Tribunal to have photos, videos or deep fakes expeditiously removed, and even to be compensated for the sexualized violence.

"As we grieve the loss of our son we want other parents to know this could happen to anyone," the family statement said.

"Talk to your kids about internet safety and keep the door to communication open so they can come to you for help."

By Chad Pawson, CBC 

Related story: Interpol confirms arrest of suspected Nigerian cyber criminal in South Africa

Nigeria, others battle state-sponsored cyber threats

With escalating geopolitical and geo-economic tensions, Nigeria and other countries with weak cyber security profiles are threatened by a barrage of state-sponsored malicious cyber activities.

These could pose an enormous risk even when they occur at low-level intensity, experts have warned. The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has issued at least six cyber-attack warnings since the beginning of the year. The warnings came on the back of a rising incidence of cyber-attacks, both globally and locally.

From software supply chain compromises to alleged attempted theft of sensitive COVID-19 vaccine research to power-supply cutoffs, state-sponsored cyber incidents have compromised the security of critical infrastructure in countries around the world.

In response, governments and businesses around the world should be developing new cybersecurity strategies and initiatives. These were made known at the ongoing Cybersecurity Virtual Reporting Tour scheduled for August 29 to September 16. Organised by Foreign Press Centres of the United States, the event is themed, “A Shared Responsibility: Prioritising Public-Private Partnerships in Cybersecurity.”

It was revealed that in 2021, the United States set a record for the highest data breaches and other cyber incidents affecting companies, governments and individuals.

According to the latest data breach report by IBM and the Ponemon Institute, a research centre dedicated to privacy, data protection, and ethical research standards, the cost of data breaches in 2021 stood at $4.24 million, which was a 10 per cent increase from the average cost recorded in 2019.

In the first quarter of 2022 alone, the number of reported breach incidents increased by 14 per cent compared to the same period in 2021, the report said.

With reference made to Cybersecurity Ventures, it was disclosed that the global average cost of cybercrime peaked at $6 trillion in 2021, driven mostly by ransomware attacks. This could hit $10.5 trillion by 2025.

While speaking on the topic: ‘Overview of Cybersecurity and its impact’, National Cyber Director and Advisor to the President of the United States Joe Biden on cybersecurity, Chris Inglis, said there is a need to understand who is responsible for what in cyberspace.

“If we get the roles and responsibilities right in cyberspace, if we get the people skills right in cyberspace, if we get the technology right in cyberspace, we will have dealt with all three of the really important pieces of the noun of cyberspace. Cyberspace is technology and people and roles and responsibilities,” he said.

Inglis said cyber is important because of what it does for the people, stressing that cyber is more than technology that it’s people and doctrine, and requires that people deliver what is expected of it.

According to him, three things are essential; “one, we need to make sure that we make the investments required to make sure that it’s resilient and robust by design, in the same way to my earlier point we do that for cars and airplanes and therapeutics. We invest in those to make sure that we can have confidence in the functions that they perform before the events occur. We try to avoid bad experiences as opposed to simply responding to things that happen to us or around us.

“Also, we will – if we make the investments necessary – create a resilient system, a defensible system, but it will never be a perfectly secure system, meaning that these systems do not defend themselves. We must actively participate in their defense, and that defense needs to be a collective defense, one where each of us makes contributions to the defence of all of us.”

This must be an international effort where we have a social contract amongst nations that determine: how we collectively make the investments necessary to create resilience in this space; how we collectively make contributions to defend what then results in this space as a series of critical functions upon which our societies depend?

From her perspective, Principal Deputy National Cyber Director, Kemba Walden, said cyberspace activities are high, stressing that ransomware is an activity that requires an all-hands-on-deck approach.

Walden said all countries and communities need to be a part of the solution. Speaking on how it is related to cryptocurrency, she said ransomware is not necessarily new, adding that it wasn’t born out of the development of cryptocurrency or even blockchain technology in the olden days, stressing that people use prepaid cards to be able to execute ransom.

According to her, the costs of doing business as a ransomware actor are far too low, stressing that there is a need to raise the costs of doing the business and raise the entry of doing business as a ransomware actor such that it becomes less profitable and more difficult to do, which impact activities of criminals.

By Adeyemi Adepetun

The Guardian

Interpol confirms arrest of suspected Nigerian cyber criminal in South Africa

A 28-year-old Nigerian has been arrested in relation to a cybercrime ring involved in phishing, internet, romance scams and money laundering.

The suspect, identified as James Junior Aliyu was arrested at an upmarket estate in Sandton, Johannesburg, after a takedown operation.

Members from the Interpol National Crime Bureau (NCB) in Pretoria with assistance from members of the SAPS Gauteng Highway Patrol Unit raided the upmarket estate at 10:00 on Wednesday, 29 June 2022, where they effected the arrest.

His arrest follows a widespread investigation involving law enforcement authorities from South Africa (SA) and the United States of America (USA).

Confirming his arrest, INTERPOL on its verified Twitter page wrote: ” Last week @SAPoliceService detained a suspected Nigerian cybercriminal allegedly involved in phishing, Internet scamming and MoneyLaundering INTERPOL’s newly-launched Financial Crime centre IFCACC is already following up on intelligence received during the arrest.”

Aliyu is accused of swindling dozens of US citizens millions in USD through email and text messages.

It was reported that Authorities in the USA, where the investigation originated have applied for his extradition.

The suspect’s case will be heard at the Randburg Magistrates’ Court on 05 July 2022.

By Fikayo Olowolagba

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The Hushpuppis And Nigeria’s Image

U.S. Arrest Warrant Exposes Police Scandal in Nigeria

The charismatic head of the Intelligence Response team of the Nigeria Police Service, Abba Kyari, has been suspended pending the investigation of allegations by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that he was in cahoots with Ramon Abbas, better known as “Hushpuppi“ a Nigerian “Yahoo boy,” a popular Nigerian term for cyber criminals, involved in money laundering and fraud.

Abbas was arrested in Dubai last year, and after being expelled from the United Arab Emirates (UAE)—not extradited—he arrived in the United States to face trial. After pleading guilty as part of a plea bargain, Abbas was sentenced by a Los Angeles court to a maximum of twenty years in prison for “conspiracy to engage in money laundering.” Abbas allegedly paid Kyari N8 million (about $20,000) to arrest and jail a rogue member of Abbas’ criminal group; those allegations are currently being investigated by the Nigerian police. A U.S. district court issued a warrant for Kyari’s arrest, but American authorities have not requested his extradition, though much of the Nigerian media expects that they will do so.

Like many of his U.S. mafia forerunners, Abbas advertised a flamboyant lifestyle, featuring photographs of him lounging about a fleet of Rolls Royce cars and a private plane. He became something of a folk hero among the poor, with some 2.5 million Instagram followers. Operating over the internet, his victims—he is known to have targeted a U.S. law firm, a foreign bank, an English Premier League soccer club, and a Qatari school—would appear to have been mostly non-Nigerian.

Perhaps because of Hushpuppi’s flamboyance and Abba Kyari’s charisma and reputation for rectitude, the episode has become a media sensation and is seen as further damaging Nigeria’s international reputation. Some commentators, however, see a silver lining: a senior police official is being investigated and has been suspended, rather than the usual official cover-up.

Whatever Nigeria’s reputation, that of the police is poor, both at home and abroad. Among Nigerians, the police are a byword for corruption—grand and petty—and harassment, especially of the poor. Anti-police sentiment boiled over late last year in protests against the notoriously brutal Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS)—for which Kyari formerly served as the officer-in-charge—collectively known as #EndSARS. The Buhari administration has promised police reform, of which there has been little evidence. However, the investigation of Abba Kyari could be a hopeful sign.

It should be noted that Abba Kyari of the National Police is not to be confused with Abba Kyari, chief of staff to President Buhari until his death last year from COVID-19.

CFR

Related stories: Nigeria suspends 'Hushpuppi-linked' police officer Abba Kyari

The Hushpuppis And Nigeria’s Image 

Thriving Under Pressure: Why Crypto Is Booming in Nigeria Despite the Banking Ban

 Nigeria’s regulators tried to crack down on cryptocurrency. Now, a few months later, it’s clear their efforts haven’t worked. The nation is a prime example of how people will turn to crypto to cope with a struggling economy despite the prohibitive stance of the state.

In February, the Central Bank of Nigeria ordered banks to “identify persons and/or entities” who were conducting transactions in crypto or running crypto exchanges and “ensure that such accounts are closed immediately.” But that ban didn’t stamp out bitcoin in Nigeria. Rather, the crypto community turned to peer-to-peer trades, or sending payments directly to each other.

According to the blockchain research firm Chainalysis, the dollar volume of crypto received by users in Nigeria has been consistently growing in 2020 and 2021, which may be partly related to this year’s bull market. In May, Nigeria received $2.4 billion worth of crypto, compared with $684 million last December, the analytics firm said.

While that kind of geographical data comes with caveats, it’s clear that crypto is alive and well in Nigeria.
 

Wealth without borders


According to a survey in March by Statista, 32% of respondents in Nigeria use crypto. Nigeria also ranked eighth in Chainalysis’ 2020 report on cryptocurrency adoption around the world.

The interest in crypto surged last fall, when activists with the “EndSARS” movement, protesting against police brutality in Nigeria, used bitcoin to raise funds.

Economic factors also appear to spur adoption.


“Recently, the devaluation of our local currency [encouraged] people [to start] saving in crypto assets like bitcoin and ethereum,” said Udeaja Kingsley, CEO of the BiTA crypto startup, adding that the crypto users are “mostly the youths that believe in it and are trading it via the means of P2P.”

So far in 2021, the Nigerian naira has been losing value with the country’s inflation rate at 18%. While U.S. dollars might be hard to obtain in Nigeria, bitcoin sometimes serves as a proxy for the dollar, allowing people to hedge against naira’s inflation. Because most of the goods Nigerians buy are imported, U.S. dollars are in high demand and there is often not enough of them available on the market.

However, some of Nigeria’s importers already switched to crypto as a payment method, says Keith Mali Chung, president and co-founder of Loopblock Network, an African blockchain firm. “Over 70% of all that is being consumed in Nigeria is imported, and with financial restrictions, bitcoin is gaining all the attention it deserves,” he said.


Chinese merchants selling clothing and electronics in Nigeria are using crypto as a means of exchange, Chung said. The pattern is similar to the one in Eastern Europe, where Chinese merchants might be sending tens of millions of dollars in crypto across the border daily.

It’s hard to estimate how much money is moving from Nigeria to China this way, Chung said, but he has some anecdotal evidence. “I know of individual [merchants] who transact over $2 million to $5 million daily, and they are countless, and the numbers are rapidly increasing,” he said.

According to Chung, some young Nigerians view bitcoin and smaller, newer cryptocurrencies as a way to make some money as the traditional economy lags because of the pandemic.

“A lot of people are taking advantage of the [decentralized finance] industry right now, it’s giving equal financial opportunities for all, irrespective of nationality or whatsoever,” Chung said. “A lot of people are jumping into different yield farming programs, I know quite a number of people who got DeFi loans to run their businesses,” he added.

Ray Youssef, CEO of Paxful, a service that enables users to buy and sell bitcoin in a peer-to-peer fashion, believes the biggest factor of crypto’s popularity in Nigeria has been “the intense drive and business aptitude of the Nigerian youth.”

“Entrepreneurship is baked into their DNA,” Youssef told CoinDesk via a spokesperson.

Frozen accounts

The Nigerian government, and the Central Bank of Nigeria in particular, haven’t been openly hostile to crypto. Commenting on the controversial banking ban during a public event in March, Adamu Lamtek, the central bank’s deputy governor, said the regulator had never banned cryptocurrency activity in Nigeria altogether; rather, it only prohibited banking services for crypto businesses.

For some crypto firms on the ground, however, Nigeria’s reality remains tough.

Luno, the crypto wallet owned by Digital Currency Group (also CoinDesk’s parent company), has had fiat deposits and withdrawal frozen since February, it said in a recent statement by the CEO Marcus Swanepoel.

Although the company managed to get its bank account in Nigeria unfrozen in June, users still can’t move their fiat funds to and from the platform, Swanepoel said, adding that the company “intensified regulatory lobbying” to get the issue sorted out.

“We are negotiating day and night with the relevant stakeholders in Nigeria to get them to collectively work with the government to find a solution that works for everyone,” he added. “This includes the CBN and other crypto platforms, and allowing people to withdraw is the main priority.”

Chike Okonkwo, sales and partnerships lead in Africa for an asset manager Thresh0ld, and also a member of the Stakeholders in Blockchain Technology Association of Nigeria (SiBAN), said the crypto community has been trying to talk with the central bank, but hasn’t heard back so far.

He says SiBAN, along with other two organizations, Blockchain Nigeria User Group and Cryptography Development Initiative of Nigeria, has been working to get on the same page with regulators for a while.

“We have been having meetings with the [Securities and Exchange Commission, the country’s securities regulator] before the CBN ban news but due to the fact that the CBN did what they did, the SEC had to pause their own plans,” Okonkwo said.

Nigeria’s SEC announced in February that it’s putting on hold its own plans to regulate crypto because of the CBN’s ban.

P2P boom

Crypto communities world-wide have found ways around government restrictions, and Nigeria is no exception.

According to Paxful’s Youssef, after the Central Bank of Nigeria banned crypto-related bank transfers in February Nigerians sent even more bank wires purchasing bitcoin than before. Paxful is “on pace” to have 23% more trades funded with bank transfers in Nigeria than last year, and 36% more in terms of volume, Youssef said.

Nigeria is the largest market for the company, with around 1.5 million users and over $1.5 billion trading volume, according to Paxful.

According to UsefulTulips, in the first half of 2021 the volumes of two major P2P platforms in Nigeria, Paxful and LocalBitcoins, were the largest in Africa, totaling over $200 million.

During the first five months of 2021, Nigerians traded 50% more than the same period last year on LocalBitcoins, said Jukka Blomberg, LocalBitcoins’ chief marketing officer, adding that new registrations have also increased this year.

That activity may be at least partly explained by the fact that P2P trades are not easy for government officials to trace. When people send money directly from one personal account to another, without channeling it through a third party, it’s hard to see how exactly individuals are using the money. It could be for bitcoin they purchased from someone, their apartment’s monthly rent or paying back a debt to a friend.

It would thus be difficult, if not impossible, for banks to “ensure that such accounts are closed immediately,” as the Central Bank of Nigeria ordered.

Turning to peer-to-peer transactions might actually make the crypto ecosystem in Nigeria healthier and more resilient, according to Yele Bademosi, CEO of the Africa-focused crypto app Bundle.

“In my opinion, we got too comfortable about the fact that we were relying on centralized rails and channels to on/off ramp crypto,” Bademosi told CoinDesk. “In the ethos of bitcoin, P2P methods are more resilient as they don’t have a central point of failure.”

Nigeria is part of a larger regional trend. Africa has seen a wild 386.93% increase in P2P trade volumes on Binance since January, according to Damilola Odufuwa, Binance’s spokeswoman in Africa. The user count across the continent grew 2,228.21% over those same four months, she added. The company declined to reveal specific data on Nigeria.

By Anna Baydakova

Coindesk

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Facebook removes fake accounts from Nigeria

Facebook has removed several pages, groups and accounts on its platforms from the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia, citing "coordinated inauthentic behaviour" aimed at misleading social media users.

A total of 443 Facebook accounts, 200 pages and 76 groups, as well as 125 Instagram accounts, were removed, the social media platform said on Thursday.

They were traced to three separate and "unconnected" operations, one of which was operating in three countries, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Nigeria; and two others in Indonesia and Egypt, to spread misleading posts and news articles.

Facebook, which owns one-time rivals Instagram and WhatsApp, said the accounts were engaged in spreading content on topics like UAE's activity in Yemen, the Iran nuclear deal and criticism of Qatar, Turkey and Iran.

Those operations created "networks of accounts to mislead others about who they were, and what they were doing," Nathaniel Gleicher, head of cybersecurity policy said in the statement.

In all, the accounts on Facebook and Instagram commanded an estimated 7.5 million followers.

The company added that it is taking down the accounts "based on their behaviour, not the content they posted".

"In each of these cases, the people behind this activity coordinated with one another and used fake accounts to misrepresent themselves."

Facebook defines coordinated inauthentic behaviour as "when groups of pages or people work together to mislead others about who they are or what they are doing."

One account called USA Thoughts posted false information about Qatar developing a "Hate App".

In Indonesia, accounts involved in "domestic-focused" issues were accused of spreading news about the deadly protests in the West Papua region.

"Although the people behind this activity attempted to conceal their identities, our investigation found links to an Indonesia media firm InsightID."

As much as $300,000 was reportedly spent on Facebook ads paid in the Indonesian currency, rupiah.

Al Jazeera was not immediately able to contact InsightID.

During the April 2019 national elections, President Joko Widodo, who was seeking re-election, was also targeted with disinformation on social media, with some accusing him of being a communist and an underground Christian.

Sluggish response

The social media giant has recently cracked down on such accounts after its founder Mark Zuckerberg came under fire in the last few years for sluggishness in developing tools to combat "extremist" content and propaganda operations.

"We are making progress rooting out this abuse, but as we’ve said before, it’s an ongoing challenge," the statement on Thursday said.

Earlier this year, Facebook removed accounts from Iraq, Ukraine, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Thailand, Honduras and Israel.

Facebook is also making attempts to prevent online abuses and spread of misinformation, including in political election campaigns.

In March, it removed 200 pages, groups and accounts linked to the former social media manager of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte for misleading people.

The accounts and posts in question posted about local news, elections and alleged misconduct by political candidates opposed to the Duterte administration.

Facebook said the accounts administrators tried to hide their identity but were linked to a network organised by Duterte's 2016 campaign operative.

The spread of fake news and propaganda, however, is not limited to individuals and private companies.

According to a study conducted by the University of Oxford and published in late September, a "handful of sophisticated state actors" are using social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to influence a global audience.

It listed China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela for using Facebook and Twitter for "foreign influence operations".

The report said that most recently, China has been "aggressively using" Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in a "global disinformation" campaign related to the ongoing protests in Hong Kong.

Al Jazeera

Global reputation of Nigeria dented by FBI fraud bust

The FBI's dramatic arrest and indictment of 80 mostly Nigerian cybercriminals in California last week made headlines globally. Closer to home, it has prompted concerns among Nigerians who are worried about the impact the busts will have on how the world views them and their country.
Previously, Nigerian criminality existed in the popular imagination somewhere between mildly serious and an internet joke.

Now, with the FBI's takedown of an intercontinental Nigerian criminal network responsible for millions of dollars in annual losses, some think that the country and its citizens risk facing an unprecedented international backlash.

A new era of travel restrictions? 

Unsurprisingly, ease of travel is at the top of the list of concerns raised.

Nigeria is one of the world's most prolific exporters of skilled migrant labor with one of the world's least powerful passports, giving holders ready access to just 52 countries. Fresh visa restrictions are the last thing educated Nigerians need.

At 35%, Nigeria already has the world's highest UK visa refusal rate. It also ranks highly in US visa refusals with a 57% refusal rate.

After indefinitely suspending interview waivers for visa renewals earlier this year, the US Embassy in Nigeria no longer gives visa interview appointments according to local reports. The embassy's Public Affairs section has denied blocking interview appointments but has provided no further comment on the issue.

Many believe that the headlines and pictures showing the arrest of several hitherto shadowy Nigerian cybercriminals will significantly worsen the situation.

They fear that the indictment and prosecution of an organized Nigerian-American crime syndicate will give President Donald Trump scarcely-needed motivation to impose a Yemen-style US travel restriction on Nigerian citizens.

It will be recalled that shortly after taking office, Trump imposed total visa bans on seven countries in Africa and the Middle East including Yemen, Sudan, Syria, and Somalia. Some Nigerians who are American residents even fear becoming collateral damage within a new narrative of "Nigerian crime gangs."

This fear is driven in part by the experience of some innocent Hispanic teenagers who found themselves embroiled in deportation proceedings after being wrongly accused of being members of the fearsome international gang MS-13.

A sophisticated operation
 
Some also believe that the indictments present a risk that existing negative Nigerian stereotypes may now transcend education and income barriers.

The FBI has opened a wider window on Nigeria's internet crime problem to the world, depicting a sophisticated operation involving people with professional web development experience and organizational process knowledge.

These are not the crude "Nigerian Princes" of the popular imagination, sitting inside crowded Lagos cybercafes sending out poorly written emails. They are highly educated and well-traveled individuals, one of whom has appeared on a Forbes 30-Under-30 list.

When the implication of this sinks in, the rest of the world may well stop segmenting Nigerians and simply lose trust in them collectively.

Outside of Nigeria, the "Nigerian" identity risks becoming subsumed by the "criminal country" single narrative that once prevented Italian immigrants in the US from moving up the social ladder.

Unlike the early 20th century Italians, Nigerians have very little with which to counterbalance negative global narratives.

Italy was a global hub for art, tourism, history, religion, and food. Nigeria is a barely functional African state that struggles to fund its budget and police its borders. Adding a mafia-lite dimension to Nigeria's already poor global image risks turning Nigerians into international pariahs, which is bad news for a country that is highly dependent on remittances.

In 2018, Nigeria received over $25 billion in remittances, a figure which exceeded the country's federal budget of $23.7 billion for that year. In the context of Nigeria's dwindling oil receipts and 70% debt service-to-revenue ratio, the picture becomes even bleaker.

A full fledged-pariah state? 

As the world tackles the threat of a terrifying new Nigerian bogeyman, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) will come under pressure to demonstrate enforcement of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations.

Predictably, the remittance sector will come under even stricter international scrutiny than at present, even though Nigeria's internet fraudsters mostly moved on years ago.

The indicted cybercriminals typically moved the stolen funds through the Nigerian banking system, instead of parallel systems like bitcoin and gift cards (which are themselves popular with other Nigerian internet scammers). This will likely attract the attention of the US Department of Justice.

At risk of removal from the SWIFT network, which connects banks across borders and effectively underpins international trade, Nigerian authorities will almost certainly do whatever they can to restore some semblance of global confidence in their KYC and AML enforcement.

On the whole, individual Nigerian citizens and organizations may well suffer localized backlash due to last week's indictments, but the Nigerian state itself is unlikely to suffer much. This is because unlike the North Korean regime, Nigeria's government neither plays an active role in cybercrime nor is it openly hostile to the international community.

The EFCC has already started collaborating with the FBI to arrest indicted suspects in Abuja with extradition to the US in view.

Going forward, the Nigerian government is best served playing a compliant and competent role in the prosecution of this case. Ultimately, that could be the difference between becoming a full-fledged pariah state and merely remaining a poorly-regarded one.

The state will always be fine, but the citizens? Not so much.

By David Hundeyin

CNN 

Related story: FBI charges 80 people connected to Nigerian romance scams

FBI charges 80 people connected to Nigerian romance scams

In March 2016, a man claiming to be a US Army captain stationed in Syria reached out to a Japanese woman on an international site for digital pen pals.

Within weeks, their relationship grew into an internet romance with the man sending daily emails in English that she translated via Google. The man who called himself Terry Garcia asked for money -- lots of it -- from the woman identified as FK in federal court documents. Over 10 months, she sent him a total of $200,000 that she borrowed from friends, her ex-husband and other relatives to make her love interest happy.

But in reality, Garcia did not exist. It was all an international online scam ran by two Nigerian men in the Los Angeles area with the help of associates in their home country and other nations, federal officials say.

And Thursday, US prosecutors charged 80 people -- mostly Nigerians -- in the widespread conspiracy that defrauded at least $6 million from businesses and vulnerable elderly women.
Of those, 17 people have been arrested in the US so far and federal investigators are trying to track down the rest in Nigeria and other nations.
"We believe this is one of the largest cases of its kind in US history," US Attorney Nick Hanna said.

A plan to smuggle diamonds

The whirlwind online romance between FK and Garcia was all conducted on a Yahoo email address with no phone calls. Garcia told FK he wasn't allowed to use a phone in Syria, according to federal authorities.

Demands for money started after he told her he'd found a bag of diamonds in Syria and needed her help to smuggle it out of the war-torn nation. He said he was injured and could not do it himself -- and introduced her to associates he said would help facilitate the transfer, court documents allege. One said he was a Red Cross diplomat who could get the diamonds shipped to FK, court documents show.

Shortly after, another man who claimed to work for a shipping company asked FK for money to ensure the package was not inspected at customs, the complaint alleges. Requests for additional money kept coming, with the fraudsters citing different reasons each time on why the package was stuck at customs.

"FK estimates that she made 35 to 40 payments over the 10 months that she had a relationship with Garcia. During that time, the fraudster(s) emailed her as many as 10 to 15 times each day, and Garcia was asking her to make the payments, so she kept paying to accounts in Turkey, the UK and the US," the federal criminal complaint says.

The loss of money has left FK angry and depressed, authorities said. "She began crying when discussing the way that these losses have affected her," the criminal complaint says.

17 arrested and dozens on the run 

The scams were not just limited to romance, Hanna said. They included business schemes where fraudsters hack escrow company email systems, impersonate employees and direct payments that funnel money back to themselves.

"In some cases, the victims thought they were communicating with US servicemen stationed overseas, when in fact, they were emailing with con men," Hanna said. "Some of the victims in this case lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in this way."

Of the 80 people charged, federal authorities arrested 14 people mostly in Los Angeles, the local US Attorney's Office said Thursday. At least three other defendants were already in custody. The remaining suspects live in other countries, mainly in Nigeria, and investigators said they'll work with the respective governments to extradite them.

How the scam worked

Investigators detailed an intricate scam traced to two key suspects who oversaw the fraudulent transfer of at least $6 million and the attempted theft of an additional $40 million.

Once co-conspirators based in Nigeria, the United States and other countries persuaded victims to send money under false pretenses, the two Nigerian men who lived in Southern California coordinated the receipt of funds, the indictment says.

The two men provided bank and money-service accounts that received funds obtained from victims and also ran the extensive money-laundering network, the complaint alleges.

The two men were arrested Thursday. All defendants will face charges of conspiracy to commit fraud, conspiracy to launder money, and aggravated identity theft. Some also will face fraud and money laundering charges.

Paul Delacourt of the FBI's Los Angeles warned people to be careful as romance scams escalate nationwide. The Federal Trade Commission has said scams that prey on vulnerable people cost Americans more money than any other fraud reported to the agency last year. More than 21,000 people were conned into sending $143 million in such schemes in 2018 alone, it reported.

"Billions of dollars are lost annually, and we urge citizens to be aware of these sophisticated financial schemes to protect themselves or their businesses from becoming unsuspecting victims," Delacourt said.

By Faith Karimi

CNN

Poland to extradite Nigerian to U.S. for $7m online fraud

A yet-to-be identified 27 year-old Nigerian is awaiting extradition by Poland to the United States over an estimated $7m cybercrime.

The Nigerian was arrested by Poland’s police in the southwestern city of Wroclaw in connection with alleged cyberfraud and extortion done over the internet.

The Police Central Bureau of Investigation said in a communique Wednesday that the Nigerian was nabbed as a result of cooperation with the FBI and Interpol, which had circulated a warrant for him. The police raid took him by surprise, the communique said. The man is suspected of banking fraud, extortion and theft of online banking access data.

Vanguard

Medical doctor turned hacker says hacking into Nigerian banks is very easy

A medical doctor turned international hacker, who has been on the Police wanted list, Michael Thompson Williams, has been arrested by the Lagos State Police Command.

Michael, who boasted of his escapades as a hacker, took a swipe at the Nigerian banking system, describing it as the easiest to hack, including government-owned account.

The 28-year-old suspect mentioned an American leading Hollywood actor, John Travolta, as one of his prey, revealing that his (Travolta) account was being monitored through a programmed device, where cash running into millions of US dollars were diverted weekly.

During preliminary investigation, it was discovered that the suspect, who has mastery of the cyber café environment, created credit cards of deceased foreigners through cyber Ghost 12. When the credit cards matures, it would be funded through a hacked Swiss account and then any transaction done by genuine accounts owner through Swiss account would be manipulated by the suspect and wired to his contrived credit card. 

Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Imohimi Edgal, paraded the suspect before journalists yesterday. After a successful transaction, the suspect as gathered would buy posh cars, sending fake alerts to the owners. The bubble burst in March after he bought a Porche car worth N28 million from a car dealer in Lagos and sent him a fake alert before making away with the car. 

However, on getting to the bank to collect the money, the car dealer, Abidogun Adewale, discovered to his shock that no amount was paid. Asked how that was possible, the suspect said he used HTTPtunnel.com to send such fake alert. 

He disclosed that during such payment, the amount would appear on the seller’s account at that moment, even if he visited his bank to confirm the payment, adding that it would disappear after one hour. Three of the vehicles he bought through such process were traced to Asaba, Delta State, and Owerri, Imo State. The number plates on the three vehicles read HRM OGUEZI 1, II and III, respectively.

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