Online fraud has become a huge source of crime in this digital age. Andrea first encountered such fraudsters during her time in Cape Town back in 2015 when she was still a student at the University of Cape Town. This “business” has been quite a big source of revenue and loss for the parties involved during the last decade. It’s about time they were exposed.
Andrea was in her 2nd year studying Electrical Engineering at UCT and was 20 years old at the time. She had a hectic work schedule in school but somehow still found time to parambulate the streets of Cape Town. She had recently gone through a breakup and was ready to freely explore and date in the Mother City. Andrea had also gotten really close with an East African girl who was also a UCT student called Bwiza.
Bwiza and Andrea were both really into fashion and excited by the fast life that living in South Africa offered. They were extremely beautiful, smart and young with a certain energy that would attract all sorts of men when they were together. They went through a lot together and in hindsight were both quite toxic for each other. Night life in Cape Town was something else. The ‘big boys’ who’d spend the most money at the club were Nigerian men, who were always dressed in designer clothes and would pop champagne like they were being paid to do so. Bwiza and Andrea barely ever spent money at the club when they went out together. They dressed to kill and wouldn’t have to do much before being invited to chill with the ’big boys’ at their VIP tables. That was their life in 2015… VIP treatment, lots of champagne and wild nights. I guess you’d call them the “champagne girls”.
On one of these nights at this popular club called Jo’burg on Long Street, they met two Nigerian men who were totally smitten by them. One of them was really into Bwiza and the other who ironically was called Trust was obsessed with Andrea. After yet another night of partying, Andrea and Trust exchanged numbers and planned to meet up again soon.
The next day, Trust couldn’t stop calling Andrea’s phone.. She was iin class for most of the day but he still kept begging to see her later once she was done. He knew that both Andrea and Bwiza were students at UCT and decided to surprise them and pick them up from school. The young man rocked up to Upper Campus in the latest sleek black Mercedes Benz to pick up the girls from class. It attracted loads of attention from other students. He got out of the car, clad in his latest designer wear and was taking photos of the gorgeous Table Mountain views as he waited for Andrea and Bwiza to finish their classes and join him and his friend from the previous night, Amadi. Trust took the ladies for dinner that day at a super fancy and expensive restaurant before dropping them back home.
That weekend, Trust sent Andrea a private cab to pick her up from her place. Uber was not a thing those days and they had to rely on private or metered cabs, which were very expensive, to move around. The driver was also a Nigerian man who told Andrea that he worked for many of these rich Nigerian men in Cape Town. They drove to Parklands, a suburban neighborhood in Cape Town that overlooks Table Mountain.
Parklands is like the Naija central of Cape Town. It’s a beautiful leafy suburban neighborhood located near Blouberg beach, on the Western Seaboard of the Mother City. It used to primarily be a white neighborhood before a big group of Nigerians migrated and settled down there. The drive from the Southern Suburbs where Andrea stayed was long and beautiful. She was astounded by the beautiful houses and high living standards of this area of Cape Town which she had never explored. They pulled up to Trust’s compound, where there were 3 other super fancy cars parked in the garage.
When Andrea walked in, she saw a group of South African, teenage-looking girls talking amongst themselves in Xhosa as they were herded out of the house by Trust’s housemate, Amadi. Trust later told Andrea that they had been partying with these girls the previous night and Andrea had left with them to drop them back home in the township. Once they left, the house got quiet. It was only Trust and Andrea who were there. She was amazed by the lavish lifestyle and house that these young men were living in. They were probably in their late 20s at the time but seemed to have too much money that they didn’t know what to do with. Trust seemed like a very local Nigerian man. He had a very heavy Nigerian accent and his English was not pure. It was mixed a lot with pidgin English and he struggled to form proper grammatical sentences.
Trust spent the afternoon making Andrea a Nigerian meal for lunch while they planned their night’s activities. She had invited her friend Bwiza to join them. The same Nigerian driver was to go and pick her up and bring her to the house before they headed out for the night. During that time, Andrea and Trust were drinking Hennessy, as per the usual, and jisting about his career. Deep down Andrea knew that Trust was not the guy for her but played it cool so as to enjoy his party favors. Trust seemed to have been brought up in a totally different social class compared to her and was barely educated, which she could tell from the way he spoke. Andrea then wondered how he had been able to make so much money at such a young age.
Trust badly wanted Andrea to be his girlfriend. He kept gushing over her beauty and brains and he soon professed his “undying love” for her. If only he knew she was just there for the champers and good times. When she asked him what he did career-wise, he sat up straight and looked her deep in the eye. He promised never to lie to her because he wanted to establish a sense of trust with Andrea, his “new woman”. Andrea had this remarkable quality about her that easily made people feel comfortable around her, enough to share their deepest darkest secrets.
Trust then went on to explain how a lot of young Nigerian men that we see popping bottles in the club are engaged in online fraud. He had first heard of the business when he was living in Lagos, Nigeria. His close friend and now housemate, Amadi, was deep into it and had sent Trust a flight ticket to come join him in Cape Town, where the business was really thriving. Coming from Lagos where electricity and WIFI were a huge problem, Cape Town offered these men better internet connectivity, constant electricity supply and overall better working conditions. The Nigerian authorities dedicated to catching fraudsters were also unable to track them down and arrest them in South Africa. There was also a large group of rich white European women in the Mother City, who were the perfect target market for their business.
Amadi was actually in a serious relationship with an older white woman who had flown down to Cape Town all the way from the States to be with him. They met this lady later that night at the club and she seemed so smitten by this man, not knowing that he was totally using her to fund his lavish lifestyle.
Because Trust had such a heavy Nigerian accent, his “cover story” had to feature some of his Nigerian background. He told Andrea that he was in a fake relationship with another much older white woman based in the States. He had lied to her that he was the son of a rich and powerful oil tycoon who had passed on a couple of years back. Trust had then apparently inherited his late father’s oil mines and was looking to expand and grow the business. However, he needed some extra cash from investors to buy/construct new oil rigs to drill the oil out. He had convinced this lady that he was totally in love with her and she really believed in him and his business. She wanted to help him grow and succeed as an oil tycoon just like his father and so became one of his major investors. This lady would send him many thousands of dollars on a regular basis which she believed was going into the oil business. Little did she know that she was a victim of online fraud and that money she was sending was being used to fund lavish nights out for “champagne girls” like Andrea and Bwiza.
These online fraudsters were commonly known as Yahoo boys because they all had multiple email accounts under fake names on Yahoo mail. They didn’t use Gmail because Google was more keen on tracking and exposing such fraudsters. The Yahoo boys would then meet these older women on online dating apps. Tinder wasn’t such a big thing those days but there were multiple other sites that catered to older women living abroad which these fraudsters focused on. Andrea was shaken to the core and tried to hide her astonishment as Trust went on to tell his story.
In the midst of his storytelling, an online Skype call came through on Trust’s laptop and he signaled Andrea to be quiet, saying that this was his fake girlfriend and he had to answer. Andrea sat there overhearing their conversation. Trust’s accent changed significantly when he picked up the phone. He tried to add a more western touch to the way he spoke and made sure not to use any pidgin English in his speech. He sounded like a more educated Nigerian man. This lady seemed very in love with Trust. He asked her about her day and she went on and on about her job and busy work day, even telling him really private information about her children. Trust sounded so supportive and kept assuring her of his undying love for her. They talked for about an hour before Trust popped the question about him needing more money for the oil mine. He promised her that he would be flying to Texas soon to see her after this phase of the job at the mines was done. His fake girlfriend totally believed everything Trust told her and promised to send him more money as soon as the call was done. They spoke on video call and he did everything to make this woman have total faith in him.
Andrea couldn’t believe neither her ears nor eyes. What world was this that she had just stumbled into! She had never been exposed to anything like that and was shaken to the core! Once the call was over, Trust then promised her that he would never lie to her and begged for Andrea to be okay with his career choice because that was the only way he could continue providing for her and offering her that lavish lifestyle. At this point, Andrea was just dying for her friend Bwiza to come and join her so that she could share all this juicy tea with her. She was so put off by this Trust guy and had made up her mind that this was the last interaction they would have. Once Bwiza arrived, Andrea shared the story with her and they devised a plan to get far away from Trust, who had already started giving off possessive and obsessive vibes.
Bwiza and Andrea soon realized that there were levels to this Yahoo boy business. They upgraded their circles to chilling with even bigger Yahoo boys who showed them even more wealth and abundance in the Mother City… (to be continued)
