Some rich men of God are our partners-in-crime, we use their accounts to receive money, says Yahoo boy

By Boye Ajayi

Internet scammers have devised other means of beating police, other security agencies, and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in carrying out their fraudulent activities.

A revelation from a “Yahoo boy” in Warri in Nigeria’s Delta State, that  he and others now pay money into some rich clergymen’s bank accounts and not their own account.

Persecondnews gathered that when the “boys’’ expect huge sums of money that could give them out, they identify clerics with huge cash inflow in their accounts and approach them to allow them to use their accounts to receive the money for a fee.

One of them said: “We identify some rich pastors to use their accounts when we are expecting some good money. Some of them will refuse even though security people hardly suspect money goes into their accounts.

“At checkpoints, police will collect our phones and by thorough searching of the phones when they see any white man or woman’s photo in our phones they will tell us what to pay and we start negotiating with them.”

According to him, some of the policemen usually demand as much as N200, 000 per person before letting them off the hook.

Asked how they made payment to the police and other security agents, the internet fraudster said they usually provide account numbers that are not linked to them to evade being caught stealing from them.

“We cannot report the policemen because the transfer of money is not into their personal accounts but the accounts of the people they use as front.

“Only people with legitimate income and businesses go that far as to report the policemen. For instance, what will I tell police that I’m doing to have about N2 million in my account? So I just to let it go,’’ he said.

“Even when we don’t move around in our cars and we board tricycle (Keke Napep) to evade the police, they still fish us out from other passengers.

“It is not only Yahoo boys that are into this business, some people in their mid-40s and 50s are also in the yahoo business. Security men probably will not suspect them because they call themselves politicians – they are yahoo politicians with no office,’’ he explained.