Nigeria has an unenviable record of having one of the highest numbers of online romance scams in Africa, despite the Cybercrimes Prohibition and Prevention Act of 2015, which prohibits the practice. YEJIDE GBENGA-OGUNDARE explores the lines between romance and illegality, including factors responsible for the growing menace.
Recently, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) reported rapid growth in the rate of cyber crimes among youths in Nigeria, highlighting romance scams involving foreigners as a huge one among the various types of internet frauds. And despite several legislations that make this a criminal act, many Nigerians still see it as a harmless act that should not be criminalised and usually aid perpetrators while also protecting them from the law.
This is not new in the Nigerian society as the former chairman of the EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, during his tenure publicly declared that parental support for children involved in dating fraud makes it difficult to curb the trend, adding that parents, especially mothers of internet fraudsters give full support to their children, on the ground that they use the proceeds of the crime to finance their families, making it the responsibility of the children to cater for the family even if through illegality.
Magu said then, that in rallying support for their children, mothers congregate to form unions and associations to build solidarity to resist law enforcement onslaught against their erring children. Though researches on victims of internet romance scams aren’t widespread, due to the difficulties in getting victims (mostly foreign nationals) to speak due to associated societal shame, Nigeria is still regarded to have the highest number of online romance fraudsters in Africa and ranks third in the world, according to available studies. According to accessible data, Nigeria was reportedly responsible for 1,129 romance scams amounting to the sum of £12.1 million in 2021; a figure that totals an average of £10,700 loss, per victim.
Nigerians are now well-known for their involvement in dating or romance scams. Scammers prey on those looking for love connections, generally through dating websites, apps, or social media, by posing as potential partners. They use emotional manipulation to persuade them to provide money, gifts, or personal information.
Arrested, extradited
Recently, two Nigerians were arrested and extradited to the United States for sexually extorting two American teenagers. The crime led to the death by suicide of one of the teenagers. In September 2021, the US court sentenced a 36-year-old Nigerian, Afeez Adebara, to four years’ imprisonment “for managing a group of money launderers” who defrauded several victims across the country using online dating sites and got about $2.5 million under the guise of being US residents working abroad and in need of funds to return to the country or implement a project.
Other high-profile cases of romance scam of recent is that of a 69-year-old California woman who lost $250,000 to a 26-year-old Nigerian scammer, who posed as a surgeon and a US Marine officer,
A 21-year-old Nigerian woman was also arrested by the Police Special Crime Unit (PSCU) in Lagos for duping a 50-year-old German of $220,000 under the guise of marrying him and setting up a joint business as a couple, after luring him on Instagram and taking him to meet her parents in a Nigerian village to dispel suspicion.
The growth of this type of crime in Nigeria has defied laws forbidding the practice especially the Cybercrimes Prohibition and Prevention Act, 2015. Currently, the internet appears to be the new place to find love for many youths, many of whom have unrealistic standards and cannot find their specifications in real life beings around them, making it easy to fall victim of make-belief humans who are usually using fake identity. In some cases, some desire to meet new people while staying anonymous and online makes this easy. Unfortunately, they end up being scammed by their online interests who are only on social media to look for victims to defraud.
Before the advent of the internet, scammers had operated in Nigeria and the illicit activities of financial fraudsters were mostly perpetrated under the Advance Fee Fraud known as 419, an act named after the Section in the Nigerian Criminal Code that forbids the act.
In perpetrating 419, criminals inform potential victims of the existence of a large sum of funds that is trapped or frozen for several reasons and offer a chunk of the amount to the potential victim as a reward if they can help facilitate the release of the funds, but with the emergence of internet, the growth of the fraud has become rapid and evolved into online dating romance scam.
Sextortion
Sometimes, romance scam is called sextortion when perpetrators start to use the victim’s nude as a material for blackmail. In Nigeria, the Federal Bureau of Investigation described sextortion as a criminal act that involved threats to distribute private and sensitive materials of the victims unless the demand of the perpetrator is complied with. The demands which are often laced with threats could be money or sexual favours, among others.
The United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency referred to sextortion as financially-motivated sexual extortion and online blackmail. It stated that from 2022, there had been an increase in reports of cases targeting children between the ages of 15 and 17 years and adults aged between 18 and 30 years.
Sextortion scams are usually run by sophisticated criminal gangs and their targets are sometimes foreigners. According to a report by the Federal Trade Commission, Americans lost $143 million to romance scams in 2018, with the average victim losing over $2,600. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Internet Crime Commission (IC3) reported receiving over 15,000 allegations of romantic scams in 2016. In 2020, romance scams reported a record of $304 million in losses to the Federal Trade Commission. This is an increase of around 50 percent, compared to the previous year.
And it is not just the money that’s at stake in these types of scams; the victims have generally developed an emotional attachment to their scammers, believing them to be real and prospective life mates. That only adds to their anguish when they become heartbroken as the scammers make off with their money or savings. Most develop deep health challenges that may give them scars, for life.
The US District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma, in a report said that many of the schemes to defraud vulnerable people looking for love start in Nigeria “where a thriving underground economy of scammers sets up profiles on online dating sites and sweet-chats unwary victims into parting with their funds.”
According to Statista, the revenue in the online dating market was projected to reach $5.1m in 2023 with a projected growth rate of 17.6 per cent and for Nigeria, it projected a 1.23 per cent growth rate from 2023 to 2027, which would result in a market volume of $22.1m in 2027.
This data reflects the increase in online dating sites and apps in the country. Undoubtedly, this has created more room for online dating scams and extortion.
Catfishing
The numerous contradictory views on the criminal nature of the act have given rise to questions like; is romance fraud a crime? What do you do when love turns sour? Are there reliefs? What are the red flags and what can be done?
Romance scam is a situation where an individual, either male or female, poses as a potential lover on the internet to connect with someone basically to defraud such people; after a bond has been created, unwarranted solicitations for money and other items to settle some self-induced emergency or business scheme starts, and the scammers will usually promise to pay back, but never do. Rather, the requests accumulate and if the victim doesn’t wise up on time, the scammer would have cut the individual off and moved on to another mark, making it difficult to even request for payback.
To lure someone into a scam, a fake profile is built with false information; usually, a fake picture of someone exceptionally attractive is frequently used to lure people to respond to love propositions. The creation of a false online identity is known as catfishing. Emails and other messages are exchanged once someone responds or appears receptive to a romantic relationship. Over time, trust is earned. Romance scams are the most often reported type of scam against Nigerians on the global scene.
Sometimes, romance scam dovetails into other forms of crime when the victim gets wise before the scammer is done especially when the scammer is in possession of nudes which leads to extortion and blackmail. However, despite divergent views, it has been established that romance scam is a criminal act because it is dependent on pretence, extortion, stealing by trick, conspiracy and sometimes, blackmail. Also, it is a fact that fraud of any sort is criminal. But while there is no specific law targeted at romance scams, there are laws that cover such crimes which allow the crime to be prosecuted under the purview of criminal offenses. Such, include the Cybercrimes Prohibition and Prevention Act of 2015.
However, there are other provisions that are used to legally prosecute romance scams, which include conspiracy to defraud, obtaining by pretense, computer-related fraud and stealing. Conspiracy to defraud is when “any person who conspires with another by deceit or any fraudulent means to affect the market price of anything publicly sold, or to defraud the public or any person, whether a particular person or not, or to extort any property from any person, is guilty of a felony and is liable to imprisonment for seven years.” Obtaining by pretenses is when “any person who by any pretense, and with intent to defraud, obtains from any other person anything capable of being stolen, or induces any other person to deliver to any person anything capable of being stolen, is guilty of a felony and is liable to imprisonment for three years.
Stealing refers to when “a person who fraudulently takes anything capable of being stolen or fraudulently converts to his own use or the use of another, anything capable of being stolen is said to steal that thing.”
Liabilities
Computer-Related Fraud is mainly when an individual uses the internet or other computer-related medium to commit a romance scam. This can be charged with a criminal offence under Cybercrime (Prohibition, Prevention, etc.) Act 2015 which states that “any person who with intent to defraud sends electronic message materially misrepresents any fact or set of facts upon which reliance the recipient or another person is caused to suffer any damage or loss, commits an offence and shall be liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term of not less than 5 years and to a fine of not less than N 10,000,000.00 or to both fine and imprisonment.”
It states further that “Any person who with intent to defraud, pranks electronic messages, instructions, subscribes any electronic message and or instruction, commits an offence and shall be liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term of not more than three years or to a fine of not more than N5, 000,000.00 or to both such fine and imprisonment.”
The following provisions are useful to combat romance scam; Section 422 of the Criminal Code Act, Section 419 of the Criminal Code Act, Section 383 of the Criminal Code Act, Section 14(3) of the Cybercrime (Prohibition, Prevention, etc) Act 2015 as well as Section 14(2) of the Cybercrime (Prohibition, Prevention, etc.) Act 2015
Any individual engaging in online romance scam is inviting criminal prosecution, especially, when the alleged scam takes place across international borders, which can result in lengthy prison sentence. Romance fraud is so serious an offence that perpetrators may even face charges of identity theft, if the strategy involves catfishing and the use of other peoples’ identities.
Relief for victims?
Are there reliefs for victims? Kemi Olopade, a legal practitioner stated that aside the satisfaction the victim gets when the perpetrator is jailed, recovering the money lost to the scheme, is usually difficult, adding that “in the few cases of romance scam that I have held brief for the client, my experience is that even when you get a guilty verdict on the offender, the likelihood of recovering any of the money you lost is slim because scammers don’t usually have assets or savings, they live large and have almost nothing in their account, except they lied and kept their assets hidden. And there is usually no one to answer to or hold accountable following a romantic fraud. So the victim in addition to a broken heart and trauma of being used, has to grapple with financial loss which varies
“However, the introduction of plea bargaining has made it easier for offenders to get off lightly and victims of romance scams can now recover a large portion of their funds under a plea-bargain agreement but this is dependent on the offender deciding to plead guilty for a lighter penalty,” she explained.
A data protection and cybersecurity legal practitioner, Moses Ndukwe said scammers take advantage of dating sites because of its anonymous nature, adding that such platforms need to increase their standards for people to use their platforms.
“Individuals who want to share sensitive images or videos should ensure that the privacy settings on their applications were set to their preferences to prevent sending them to the wrong platforms inadvertently, do proper verification of profiles and ask for means of identification from people they are dealing with” he recommended.
According to Wumi Bello, a legal practitioner, “aside making local laws prohibiting cybercrimes and dating scams, the Nigerian government should intensify its efforts in collaborating with international law enforcement agencies to address romance scams and banks and other financial institutions should flag warnings when individuals go to withdraw large sums of money”.
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