Romance Scam Originated In Nigeria Ahead Of Internet; Prof Says
An Associate Professor with the Department of Criminal Justice at Temple University in the United States of America (USA), Dr Aunshul Rege says a romance scam also known as Catfishing, originated in Nigeria even before the internet.
West Africa is reported to have one of the largest networks of romance scammers in the world.
Ghana and Nigeria come to the spotlight when romance scam is mentioned, with Nigeria taking the lead.
In a broadcast by BBC, Janessa Podcast Host, Hannah Ajala, defined catfishing as “when someone pretends to be who they are not and they usually ask for money.”
According to her, romance scammers steal people’s photos, people’s identities and lure strangers online for money.
“A lot operate in West Africa”, she said.
Genesis Of Romance Scam In Nigeria
Dr Rege pointed out there are a lot of such scammers who aren’t Nigerians but Nigerians are unpopular for that because they were ahead of the game.
She said a substantial number of people from Turkey, China, the UAE, and the UK engaged in it.
“There are a lot of scammers all over the world. They (Nigerian scammers) were just ahead of the game. They were the first group to actually start looking at advance-free frauds large scale and they were doing it before the internet anyway. Snail mail is the good old fashion way of conning people.
“So cyber cafes started emerging in about the 90s so they were the first ones to adopt and took advantage.”
She said a romance playbook she found was traced to a Nigerian Scam group and contained their modus operandi.
She said the book contained “what to say, what not to say, when to say it and many others.”
Recruitment
One Ghanaian romance scammer Hannah interacted with admitted he is compelled to do it due to lack of jobs.
He said he does it to feed his family and cover other responsibilities.
Dr Rege said recruitment for scam networks is easy due to a lack of infrastructure, a lack of jobs, and a culture that celebrates wealth worldwide.
Precautions
Dr Rege observes that victims of romance scams refuse to report or talk about it due to the level of stigma associated with it.
She said this makes it difficult to deal with the menace and therefore urged such victims to speak up.
In detecting such romance scams, she said, “When you start to connect with someone do a reverse image search of the person’s profile picture. See if they are associated with other names.
“At the love bombing stage, try to switch things up to see how they react. If you go to his text messages, try phone calls, try video calls, ask for details about their personal lives and follow up on that.
“When they start asking you for money, consider how they do it. Is it a wire transfer? Is it gift cards?”
Source: opemsuo.com/Hajara Fuseini
