West african dating scams

Looking for love online? Protect Yourself Against Romance Scams

Updated: BST, 14 February Rippling biceps, short blond hair and a military uniform was the mask of choice for Christopher Maxwell. Speaking to Money Mail, the self-confessed reformed scammer reveals the deceptive and cruel tricks he used to seduce women across the English-speaking world from the UK to the US, Canada and Australia. Christopher, who is using a pseudonym and now works as a consultant at fraud-busting group Social Catfish, started scamming in as a way of making easy money during his second year of university in Nigeria. Also, being single at 40, they are eager for love. Check her [social media] bio for information.

REGISTER TO VIEW

Romance scams happen all around the world, but West Africa has been mastering the art for decades. Nowadays, Nigeria and Ghana have become synonymous with catfishing: pretending to be someone you're not online as part of a romantic or financial scam. Hannah Ajala, presenter of the podcast Love, Janessa, explores how West Africa became the birthplace of the romance scam.

REGISTER TO VIEW

Scarlet Widow has mastered the seductive art of the romance scam, defrauding victims in the United States out of thousands of dollars through a prolific number of cons. In all actuality, this number is likely much larger. This document is the first of two reports Agari has prepared on Scarlet Widow. While much of the high-profile cybersecurity news of the past few years has involved state sponsors like Russia and North Korea, American individuals and businesses are far more likely to be targeted by West African crime groups. These groups, which frequently hail from Nigeria, account for a significant majority of the social engineering-based cyber attacks that American businesses encounter on a daily basis. Scarlet Widow is a Nigeria-based cybercriminal organization that has been in operation since at least

REGISTER TO VIEW

West African letter scam

A romance scam is a confidence trick involving feigning romantic intentions towards a victim, gaining the victim's affection, and then using that goodwill to get the victim to send money to the scammer under false pretenses or to commit fraud against the victim. Fraudulent acts may involve access to the victim's money, bank accounts, credit cards, passports, Cash App [2] , e-mail accounts, or national identification numbers ; or forcing the victims to commit financial fraud on their behalf. These scams are often perpetrated by organized criminal gangs, who work together to take money from multiple victims at a time. More money is lost each year to romance scams than to similar internet scams, such as technical support scams. Romance scammers create personal profiles using stolen photographs of attractive people for the purpose of asking others to contact them.

REGISTER TO VIEW

REGISTER TO VIEW