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The Yahoo Boys : love, deception, and the real lives of Nigeria's romance scammers / Carlos Barragán.
Van Pelt - New Book Display HV6773.15.C56 B37 2026
Available
Log in to request item- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Barragán, Carlos (Reporter), author.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Computer crimes--Africa.
- Computer crimes.
- Swindlers and swindling--Nigeria.
- Swindlers and swindling.
- Online dating.
- Internet fraud.
- Fraud.
- Nigeria--Economic conditions--21st century.
- Nigeria.
- fraud.
- Genre:
- True crime stories.
- Physical Description:
- 287 pages ; 22 cm
- Edition:
- First edition.
- Other Title:
- Love, deception, and the real lives of Nigeria's romance scammers
- Place of Publication:
- New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2026.
- Summary:
- When his mother started emailing with a handsome American soldier who promised to send gold bars to her Madrid apartment, the journalist Carlos Barrag̀n came face to face with the human toll of online romance fraud. After tracing the emails to an IP address in Nigeria, he set off on a journey to Lagos to find his mother's scammer, where he stumbled on a much bigger story. There, in a crowded and impoverished neighborhood in the midst of Africa's largest city, he encountered thousands of young men engaged in romance scamming. They call themselves "Yahoo Boys," and each year they catfish millions of dollars from lonely victims overseas, building a dizzying local economy from their phones ... Some Yahoo Boys attain the status of folk heroes, buying houses and cars with the money they make, while others become dependent on drugs and "cash out" -- successfully scam a victim -- only to lose it all. Through the Yahoo Boys' twisting fortunes, Barrag̀n discovers the psychological tactics they perfect, the brutal economic realities that drive them, and the moral dilemmas they confront.
- Contents:
- Searching for my mother's scammer
- Biggy (I)
- Chibuike (I)
- Azeez (I)
- Richie and Trisha
- Biggy (II)
- Chibuike (II)
- Azeez (II)
- Trisha
- Biggy and Miracle
- Chibuike (III)
- Azeez (III).
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 277-281).
- ISBN:
- 9780374609306
- 0374609306
- OCLC:
- 1594267906
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