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coochiequeens · 1 year

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The UAE…. Where rape victims can jailed for having sex outside of marriage but the authorities look the way when African women are forced into prostitution. But it’s ok with authorities because as long as the foreign male population has a foreign female population to exploit the local women won’t be harassed.

African women trafficked into the UAE are forced into debt and subjected to threats and violence, as they are kept in sexual slavery. The case of Christy Gold, who has been charged with sex trafficking in Nigeria, highlights the torment endured by these women in the UAE.

By MAGGIE MICHAEL

Filed June 12, 2023, 11 a.m. GMT

On a pleasure boat cruising Gulf waters near Dubai’s glittering skyline, a Nigerian woman in a white dress and gold jewelry nodded and swayed as a gathering sang “Happy Birthday” to her.

Videos of Christy Gold’s 45th birthday party were posted in May last year on an Instagram account that showcases her glamorous lifestyle, months after Gold fled Nigeria, where she was facing sex trafficking charges.

Gold – whose name appears in court records as Christiana Jacob Uadiale – was a ringleader in a criminal network that lured African women to Dubai and forced them into prostitution in brothels, backstreets, bars, hotels and dance clubs, according to six Nigerian government anti-trafficking officials, a British human rights activist who has tracked her operation and five women who say they were trafficked and exploited by her.

Three of the women said in interviews that Gold told them that if they didn’t do as they were told, they’d be killed and dumped in the desert. Those who didn’t make enough money for her were taken to a room in an apartment in Dubai, where Gold’s brother starved them, flogged them and shoved hot chili paste into their vaginas, according to three anti-trafficking officials and five women who provided detailed accounts in interviews and court statements.

“They beat the hell out of me,” one of the women said. “The suffering was too much.”

In a statement to the court after she was charged, Gold denied that she and her brother were sex traffickers. “I am not involved in human trafficking and I do not have any girls in Dubai working for me as a prostitute,” she said.

Gold remains a fugitive from justice – part of what anti-trafficking activists and officials say is a thriving underground of suspected Nigerian sex traffickers who have taken refuge in the United Arab Emirates, a Gulf nation known for its wealth, futuristic skyscrapers and what rights groups say is a poor record on protecting foreign workers and basic freedoms.

The UAE is a major destination for sex trafficking, where African women are forced into prostitution by illicit networks operating within the country, an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and Reuters has found.

Emirati authorities do little to protect these women, according to anti-trafficking activists, Nigerian authorities and interviews with trafficked women.

This story is based on interviews with 25 African women, mostly from Nigeria, who described being lured to the UAE by Gold or other alleged traffickers, as well as dozens of interviews with humanitarian workers, investigators, Nigerian government officials and others with knowledge of sex trafficking in the Emirates. Their accounts are corroborated by court records and case files from Nigeria’s anti-human trafficking agency.

Human traffickers keep African women in sexual slavery by playing on their financial desperation and creating webs of manipulation and coercion, the reporting shows. They subject them to threats and violence. They ensnare them in crushing debts, often totaling $10,000 to $15,000 – huge sums for women from poor families. And, in many cases, they exploit traditional African spiritual beliefs to make victims believe that they have no choice but to do what the traffickers tell them.

This article is part of a reporting collaboration led by ICIJ, Trafficking Inc., which is examining sex trafficking and labor trafficking in many parts of the globe. ICIJ’s media partners on the project include Reuters, NBC News, Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism and other news outlets in multiple countries.

Gold did not respond to questions for this story. In her statement to the court in Nigeria, Gold said she had helped Nigerian women and men move to the UAE by subletting space to them in an apartment she owned in Dubai.

“I even go as far as advising them like a mother so they too can make it in Dubai,” she said. But she told the court, “I cannot tell what these people did for a living in Dubai.”

In a written reply supplied by the Dubai government’s media affairs office, the emirate’s police agency said claims that Gold had engaged in the sex trafficking of African women in Dubai are “false and have absolutely no basis in fact.” The statement said Gold had “entered and exited Dubai legally and was not implicated in any illegal activities.”

The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs said any suggestion the UAE “tolerates human trafficking or that it has little regard to the victims of this heinous crime is utterly false.” Such allegations, the ministry said in response to questions, were “baseless and without foundation.”

The ministry said the UAE’s laws on sex trafficking carry heavy fines and prison sentences. A report the ministry shared said the UAE had referred 20 “human trafficking cases” to the courts in 2021, most for “sexual exploitation.”

The UAE has been involved in international police operations against trafficking networks, the ministry said.

Human rights activists and Nigerian authorities say the UAE doesn’t live up to its anti-trafficking commitments.

Fatima Waziri-Azi, director general of Nigeria’s National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, said there has been “no cooperation” when NAPTIP has reached out to Emirati authorities for help hunting down traffickers working out of the UAE.

Angus Thomas, a British activist who founded an anti-trafficking education organization based in Ghana, said UAE authorities, including the police, were uncooperative when he urged them to help African women get away from Gold and her associates.

“I wrote, I phoned, I emailed, asking them to help me get the girls, sending addresses of apartments,” he said. “And I heard nothing.”

In plain sight

Sex trafficking is one form of human trafficking, which is generally defined as using force, fraud or coercion to induce someone to provide a service.

Most of the 25 women interviewed for this story said they were promised other types of work but were driven into prostitution. Others said they chose to do sex work but were trapped in situations in which they were abused, their earnings were stolen and they were unable to get away.

The UAE made sex trafficking a crime in 2006 and has established an interagency anti-trafficking panel and opened shelters for survivors. The U.S. State Department said in 2022 that the UAE has made “significant efforts” to combat human trafficking but still falls short in key areas – including failing to “consistently screen vulnerable populations for trafficking indicators, which may have penalized some victims for unlawful acts traffickers compelled them to commit, such as immigration or ‘prostitution’ violations.”

The UAE follows Islamic law, yet prostitution and sex trafficking are open secrets. Business cards with photos and WhatsApp numbers for brothels disguised as massage parlors litter many areas of Dubai. Spas, dance clubs and bars are filled with sex workers.

A hierarchy based on skin tone plays an important role in the UAE’s sex industry, according to interviews with trafficked women and visits to spots where prostitutes congregate in the UAE. Lighter-skinned women from Europe are generally trafficked into higher-end venues serving wealthier customers. Darker-skinned women are often steered to alleys and street corners, providing sex to low-income migrant workers from South Asia and Africa.

One Nigerian woman described being taken by a trafficker to an open-air brothel in the desert between Dubai and another emirate, Abu Dhabi. She said she and other women would take off their clothes and spread them on the ground, and men would come to have sex with them from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.

A Nigerian mother in her 20s said a trafficker led her and two other women to a parking lot in Ajman, one of the emirates that make up the UAE, and forced them to have sex with male clients amid vehicles that were being painted and repaired. At the end of the night, she said, the traffickers took all the money, leaving them with nothing to buy food.

After she broke free of the trafficker, the woman said, she slept in the streets and begged for food. She nearly lost her mind, she said, before a nurse from Nigeria rescued her and helped her get home.

The UAE's sex industry is shaped by the country's distinctive demography and economy.

Nearly 90% of its population comes from somewhere else – mostly foreign workers employed in construction, hospitality and other industries. Most of them are men and they arrive alone. As a result, 69% of the UAE’s population is male. The government deals with these demographic realities by deploying extensive surveillance in the UAE – and by allowing a bustling sex trade as a way of pacifying male workers, according to two former diplomats who were based in the UAE and monitored sex trafficking.

Gold and Mercy

On New Year’s Eve 2019, Thomas, a photographer and anti-trafficking activist, had a one-day layover in the UAE before heading home to London. He was going into a supermarket in Dubai when a 19-year-old Nigerian woman approached him and offered him sex.

He declined, but asked her if she wanted to return to her home country.

She told him, Thomas said, that she and 22 other women were under the control of a trafficker named Christy Gold. Back in London, he sent her money to rent a safe place to stay and then arranged a flight home to Nigeria.

Thomas said he began trying to rescue other women trapped in Dubai. He started a campaign called Send Them Home, raising money to cover victims’ escape and travel costs. Over several months, Thomas said, he helped rescue eight other women who said they’d been held against their will by Gold or other traffickers operating in the UAE. Thomas’ account was confirmed by Nigerian anti-trafficking officials and women who Thomas helped escape from traffickers.

He also shared information that he had gathered about Gold with Nigeria’s anti-trafficking agency NAPTIP, which can arrest and prosecute alleged traffickers. His efforts included tracking Gold’s Instagram account, where she displays hundreds of online posts featuring lion-shaped gold pendants and other jewelry she sells through a gold trading business she runs from Dubai.

In a May 2022 email to Waziri-Azi, the Nigerian anti-trafficking agency’s director, Thomas wrote that Gold was “flaunting her wealth built on the backs” of young women “she trafficks to Dubai.”

Little is known about Gold’s background. In her written statement to the Nigerian court, Gold said that she traveled to Dubai in 2009 and after that began shuttling back and forth, buying gold, shoes and handbags in the UAE and selling them in Nigeria.

According to victim statements to the court and interviews, Gold and her associates targeted Nigerian women who were desperate for work and new lives, promising them jobs in hair salons, restaurants and other retail businesses in Dubai. Gold’s associates helped them obtain Nigerian passports and tourist visas to travel to the UAE.

Descriptions of her operations come from five women who said they’d been trafficked by Gold. Three gave detailed interviews. Two of the three women interviewed for this story, along with two other women, have submitted witness statements in Gold’s criminal case.

Each of the three women interviewed for this article said she was trafficked after being approached by a recruiter, Mercy Ewere Owuzo, who worked with Gold.

One said she was working in a shop in Nigeria’s largest city, Lagos, in July 2019 when Owuzo told her that she could make much more money as a salesperson in a store in Dubai.

“I didn’t ask any questions because she told me she is trying to help young women and I thought, ‘She is a kind person,’” the woman, 25, recalled.

She said Owuzo paid for her passport, plane ticket and UAE tourist visa.

After arriving in Dubai, she said, she talked by phone to Owuzo, who told her there was no job for her in a store. Instead, she would be going to clubs, restaurants and hotels to sell her body. It was the only way, she said she was told, to pay down the $12,000 debt that she owed Gold for bringing her to the UAE.

The three women said Gold also controlled them by confiscating their passports. Then, they said, she created fake passports that appeared authentic enough to get them through routine police stops or past front desks at hotels – but not enough to get them out of the country.

It’s not clear from witness accounts and court documents whether Gold was the topmost leader of the alleged trafficking network. The three women interviewed for this story said she exercised a substantial level of authority and was deeply engaged in the network’s operations – personally threatening, for example, to leave their corpses in the Arabian Desert if they didn’t comply with her demands.

“Every time we don’t bring money, they would beat us, put pepper in our vagina, pepper in our eyes,” said one of the three women, who said she was working as a hairstylist in Nigeria before Owuzo promised her a better-paying job in Dubai. “Many of us had wounds, but we weren’t taken to hospitals because they don’t want people to know what they were doing to us.”

All three of these women spent time in a two-bedroom apartment in Dubai controlled by Gold. At one point, they said, Gold occupied one bedroom, while as many as 18 women were crammed into the other, with most sleeping on blankets on the floor.

It was here, according to interviews and court statements, that women marked for punishment were sent and where Gold’s enforcer – her brother Solomon – sexually assaulted them and beat their malnourished bodies with a hookah hose, broomstick or other implements.

NAPTIP officials said Solomon has not been charged with a crime. Gold said in her court statement that she never ordered Solomon to hurt anyone who stayed in her apartment in Dubai.

“I have never at any time instructed him to beat any of the girls as I have never had cause to beat any of them,” she said.

ICIJ and Reuters were unable to contact Solomon.

Victoria Oburoh, one of NAPTIP’s top prosecutors, confirmed that Gold and Owuzo worked together. In May last year, NAPTIP was able to win a conviction of Owuzo on sex trafficking charges in federal court in the Nigerian state of Delta. Oburoh said that case and the one pending against Gold are “sister cases.”

A lawyer who represented Owuzo during her trial declined to comment.

NAPTIP began an investigation of Gold after one of her alleged victims reported her to the police in Nigeria. Authorities charged Gold with six counts of violating Nigeria’s sex trafficking law.

After a judge released her on bail, she failed to show up for a scheduled court appearance on Nov. 3, 2021. Her lawyer told the judge that Gold had been “found half dead on the bed” and taken to a hospital.

The judge ordered that Gold be taken back into custody. But authorities had no luck tracking her down, NAPTIP officials say.

Christy Gold had disappeared.

Put me in prison’

Loudspeakers announced evening prayers at a mosque in Al Baraha, a working-class neighborhood in Dubai’s populous Deira district, when a reporter visited last August.

Steps away, young women in colorful wigs and low-cut evening dresses lined up in front of shabby buildings for their day’s work: providing sex to men. On the fourth and fifth floors of one building, South Asian men sat in the stairway, scrolling on their phones, sipping beer and waiting for their turns with the sex workers.

All the while police vehicles slowly navigated the district’s narrow alleys – part of the policing and surveillance apparatus that keeps UAE authorities deeply informed about what’s going on in Dubai and other emirates.

One of the sex workers was a young woman who arrived from Ghana in June 2022. She said she was promised a job as a housemaid but found herself doing an entirely different kind of work.

She rolled up her dress to show the bruises that came with the job.

“A few days ago, my eyes were swollen after being hit in the face and slapped when I failed to meet the target,” she said. “It’s my boss who did this to me.”

He told her, she said, that if she wanted to gain her freedom, she had to pay a debt of nearly $10,000.

“Where do I go? What do I do?” she asked, breaking into tears. She said her trafficker, whom she didn’t name, had taken away her phone and passport. Another way traffickers and their subordinates control African women is by using the power of juju, a traditional African spiritual belief system.

Women targeted for sex trafficking are required to take “juju oaths,” solemn vows to do the bidding of the recruiters who have promised to help them find work abroad. As part of the oath-taking ceremonies, they are told to strip naked, kneel for hours and swallow noxious drinks that can make them dizzy. They’re warned that breaking their vows of obedience could put a curse on them that could cause injury, death, even generational misfortune for their families.

Most of the women interviewed for this story said they had been required to take a juju oath, with some of the ceremonies conducted in Nigeria and others after they arrived in the UAE.

Three women said in witness statements in Gold’s criminal case that Gold’s associates required them to do oath-taking ceremonies in Nigeria before they traveled to Dubai.

“She makes us believe she has juju,” one woman who claims she’d been trafficked by Gold said in an interview. “That is, if we run away, we can become mad or die.”

In her statement to the court, Gold denied organizing such ceremonies.

When women brave the threats of real violence and otherworldly consequences to try to escape their traffickers, they say they often get little help from Emirati authorities.

A 25-year-old Ugandan said that after she fled a brothel in the Deira district of Dubai where she was forced to work, she headed to the nearest police station. She said a police officer took her back to the brothel and negotiated with the trafficker to return the passport to her. The officer left without doing anything else, and the trafficker took the passport back again, she said.

She got away for good only after she reached out to Nyondo Rozet, a Ugandan YouTube broadcaster based in the UAE. Rozet posted a video about her plight, which raised the money for a plane ticket home.

Rozet, whose videos primarily appeal to the Ugandan community in the UAE, said in an interview that a woman who called her, saying she was the trafficker, offered her money to take the video down. When she refused, Rozet said, other people contacted her to threaten harm if she didn’t delete the video, telling her: “You are not going to survive.”

The Dubai police did not respond to questions about the incident.

A 23-year-old woman from Nigeria’s northeastern farm belt said she thought UAE police would help her after she fled a brothel in Abu Dhabi where she and six other women had been locked in a room filled with steel beds separated by curtains. Every night, she had to have sex with half a dozen men.

She had slipped away when her boss got drunk and left the key in the door. But when she walked into a police station in the Khalidiya area of Abu Dhabi, she said, an officer told her, “Go to where you came from.”

She said she pleaded: “Put me in prison!” But “they turned their back to me. I was crying, but they paid no attention. They said: ‘To Hell with Africa.’”

The police station in Khalidiya did not respond to a request for comment.

Extradition request

For years, large numbers of migrants from Nigeria and other African countries have sought jobs and new lives in Europe. Migration routes have changed as European Union members have pushed migrants back to Libya, the main transit point across the Mediterranean Sea. With the way to Europe increasingly blocked, African migrants have turned, in growing numbers, to the UAE and other rich Arab nations.

Oburoh, the NAPTIP prosecutor, said that when trafficking cases have links to Europe, governments there provide information and cooperation that help the agency apprehend and prosecute traffickers. But when it comes to the UAE, official cooperation is nonexistent, Nigerian anti-trafficking investigators said.

At home, NAPTIP operates in an environment where some government officials also have been accused of engaging in human trafficking – and where, NAPTIP officials say, convicted traffickers often avoid jail terms.

The Nigerian government did not respond to a request for comment.

#united arab emirates #UAE #anti sex industry #anti exploiting women #Sex trafficking #Nigeria’s National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons #If sex work is empowering then how are the women left with no money after the pimps take everything?#Societal issues when 69% of a countries population is male #Send Them Home #Using spiritual beliefs to trap in abusive situations women #Women around the World Wednesday

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gkingmusik · 7 months

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U.S college students raise money to send their security guard who has been longing to visit his family in Nigeria on holiday (video)

Some U.S college students have raised money to send their security guard who has been longing to visit his family in Nigeria on holiday. The initiative to send the Nigerian security guard on holiday to Nigeria was spearheaded by a student identified as Brandon. James subsequently went down on his knees to thank students of Providence College in the United States, after their kind gesture…

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#U.S college students raise money to send their security guard who has been longing to visit his family in Nigeria on holiday (video)

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angelsaxis · 8 months

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"I’m Lola, a Black transfemme living in Nigeria, where my existence is illegal with two decades of jail time. I got kicked out by my parents after I was forcefully outed and am currently in a homeless shelter.

I’ve been harassed multiple times, and recently, I was followed and harassed by four men near the shelter who threatened to kill me and split my head open. My life is in danger, and I’m facing homelessness as the shelter will be shut down by this month’s end. Being homeless as trans woman or transfemme in Nigeria is a death sentence

I’m also dealing with suicidal thoughts from gender dysphoria and a lack of access to HRT.

I’m seeking help so I can afford safe housing and gender affirming care so I can transition safely and save my life. This GoFundMe is the second one created because of problems with the first."

Lola is currently living on the streets because their homeless shelter kicked them out when they reported transphobic harassent and violence. they've been attacked, and they need food and money for a place to stay.

if you prefer not to donate to the GFM, you can send money to Lola through P*yP*l here: paypal.me/angelsaxis

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animentality · 2 years

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#polls

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skippyv20 · 4 months

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Let’s take a peek into MM’s diary….

Dear Dairy,

Sorry I haven’t written to you for awhile. I’m so popular and I don’t have a second to myself these days. Everyone…and I mean EVERYONE wants to be my bestie. I am good with that, as you know, the more people I can use and abuse, the happier I am. I must say though, unless I get something out of a bestie…I’m not interested. The Kardasicans, give me a headache. They walk around like they live for money and selfies! I mean please! I know they are jelly (have scrapped the scam jam, and going to make jelly now, see how I did that?) of me, they would grab onto Larry, sorry…Harry in a second. They don’t stand a chance with him though, because they may be trashy…but believe me…I AM trashier. That’s how I won his (heart). Anyways, I am done with them using my mom so they can stay in the news. They need to be able to say…”we are besties with Doria the DuchAss’s mom! Forget it! I told my mom (who happens to be 50% Nigerian) that she needs to be careful with those people, as they don’t even like her….no one does….they only like ME, and use her to get to ME. Anyways, enough about them.

I know people are getting impatient waiting for my long, long, long list of products for my new Scam Company ARO. They are coming….likely in the year 2080. So, something to look forward to. I have great hope for my toilet paper line, dental floss, toothpaste, perfume, and dish detergent. I am really focusing on these items. I do however want to start a line of brooms and shovels as well. Everytime I am on SM (shhh don’t tell everyone)…I see them talk about brooms and shovels, so yeah, I get the message, my public wants me to sell these items. So working on that. The shovels will be tested this week at the local farm. Trying them out in the horse stalls, see how much they can handle. I did get Larry (Harry) to try out a broom. I had him climb up a tree with a broom. He got on a thick branch and stood up with the broom, and jumped thinking he would fly. Sadly, he couldn’t fly with it. Back to square one, and research. Look at him! How embarrassing! Great news though! The broom didn’t break!

Oh Diary, a sneaky peek at my new Dish Detergent I created….on sale in 2079…I LOVE the packaging…great name too!

When I was 11 yrs old….i saw a commercial. There was a girl washing dishes! I said NOPE! I wrote to the company and said NOPE, girls have better things to do then wash dishes! Why can’t boys wash dishes! The company changed the commercial…..immediately! Now boys wash dishes….thanks to yours truly, ME! So anyways, that’s why it was so important for me to create my new dish detergent, I can’t recall why I named it Dawn though? Oh, I do recall now….thats the time I usually roll home! My amazing business ARO is a family business, I even have LallyBet doing testing…she will always have a future washing dishes. She will have to earn her own money in life, because….what is MINE…is MINE, and I will spend every penny on ME!

Oh my trip! Yeah so I was invited to……Nigerian. It was fun. The best part is….they see me as the Princess of Nigerian. They were so easy to scam! (Note to self…send them jam and dish detergent.). They really made us feel welcome, but I didn’t like the food. I didn’t like the way the dressed. I didn’t like the air. I didn’t like the people. I did however, LOVE they see me as influential and a role model for the young ones. I could see in their sad little eyes, they ALL see me in them and them in me. They will never achieve what I have achieved. Sadly, not everyone is a good grifter. I don’t know, maybe if a go there every few months I can change a couple of them into little mini me grifters….I don’t know. I almost fell on my face! My spray tan was rubbing off, or dripping off I should say. Spray tan doesn’t work in extreme heat!!!! No biggie, they know I am 89% Nigeria. It was a privilege for all to meet me, and they paid me plenty…so all good.

Ok, this is a real secret. Larry (Harry) and I are going to Australia. We decided we are going to become King and Queen over there. We can’t get back into the UK, or Kanada..so Australia is the only place left. I want to go there for two reasons. One, they need a king and QUEEN. Two, I love Kalhua Bears. We are going to get a partition going, should be easy. The Aussies have thick accents, and I don’t think they understand English so should be easy to fool them. If they catch on and say they have a King and Queen, we will just tell them they quit their jobs, and told us to go under. Seriously, I think we can pull this off. I will have the biggest tiara anyone has ever seen. Do they have yachts in Aussie? Asking for a friend. I have seen some of the men in Aussie. Oh yeah….they would like me…no doubt about it. Those Hems worth bros are so good looking….yep….I have got to meet them.

Well I guess I should go, Larry (Harry) is crying again, blah blahblahblah……

If anyone happens to read my Diary, please donate to our new charities:

Make Me Richer Foundation

Me Me Me Foundation

Dish Detergents Foundation

Broken Harry Foundation

Also buy MY new books:

I Can Scam Like No Other

The Best Way to Fool Governments

I Know Everyone In The World Wants to be ME

How To Pretend You Have Children

How To Be 89% Nigeria And Get Away With It

I have another 59 books but I will tell you about them later!

Love Me….I LOVE ME!xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

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ohmyartref · 11 days

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90ghost is not a reliable vetter, other other anon, and sorry not sorry but you are being painfully gullible and palestinian blood is on your hands for encouraging people to steal aid and donate to scams instead :) sleep well tonight knowing you could have not diverted funds from vetted charities because you're gullible enough to believe "just trust me bro" is a valid source :) :)

now if you'll just give me your ssn i have a bridge to sell you. you'll inherit the kingdom of nigeria, the prince's canoe and his plump young wife as soon as you send all your personal information to Someone Who Said They're Not Lying So They Must Be Reliable. :)

Seriously did none of you watch postcards from buster or spend even a fraction of a millisecond on basic common sense? no of course you didn't you're too busy virtue signaling to do anything that helps a single actual existing human being

you people are behaving in a way that is disgusting, self-serving and stupid. You deserve to be scammed out of all your money, but real Palestinians deserve better than your "hlep". I hope you're proud of yourselves for taking aid out of the mouths of the Palestinian children you pretend you care about so you look good on the internet because that's what really matters right?

No one is encouraging stealing aid from Palestinian people, and if it truly is a scam, I ask for proof and evidence of it, please. To me, it doesn't look like one, and I haven't been shown any proof that it is a scam. I may not know all the ways to fully check, but if there is proof, I would happily see it, I don't wish to spread anything false, so if it is I'll take it down for sure.

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beardedmrbean · 16 days

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Two brothers from Nigeria who targeted a 17-year-old in a sextortion scam have been sentenced to 17 years and six months in jail in the US.

The Ogoshi brothers, from Lagos, lured Jordan DeMay into sending them explicit images by pretending to be a girl his age - then blackmailed him.

He killed himself less than six hours after they started talking on Instagram.

It is the first successful prosecution of Nigerians for sextortion in the US, where it is a rapidly growing cyber-crime, often linked to Nigeria.

Jordan's mother, Jenn Buta, held pictures of her son in court and wept as she read a victim impact statement. "I am shattered to my core," she said.

She welcomed the ending of the trial, but said there was no good outcome from the tragic case.

Jordan DeMay was a popular schoolboy from Michigan.

Samuel Ogoshi, 24, and Samson Ogoshi, 21, sent him a friend request on Instagram pretending to be a pretty girl his age and then flirted with him.

Once they received explicit images from the teenager, they blackmailed him for hundreds of dollars, threatening to share the pictures online with his friends if he did not comply.

Jordan sent as much money as he could and warned the scammers that he would kill himself if they spread the images.

The criminals replied: “Good… Do that fast - or I'll make you do it.”

John DeMay told Marquette federal court in Michigan he still has nightmares after finding his son dead in his bedroom. He said his family was forced to move home to escape the memory.

If you've been affected by the issues in this story, help and support is available via the BBC Action Line

The brothers pleaded guilty in April to conspiring to sexually exploit teenage boys in Michigan and across the US.

Thirty-eight other US victims were also identified as being targeted by the men. 13 of them were minors.

The brothers sat in court in orange jumpsuits with handcuffs.

Their defence attorneys said the brothers' crimes were fuelled by drug abuse and the sextortion scam culture in Nigeria.

The judge said the crimes showed a "callous disregard for life", especially given they continued targeting other victims after learning that Jordan has died.

Both brothers apologised to Jordan's family.

"I'm sorry to the family. We made a bad decision to make money and I wish I could change that," Samson Ogoshi said.

In the first case of its kind, US police tracked the criminals to Lagos last summer and successfully extradited them for trial.

Another Nigerian man linked to Jordan’s death and other cases is fighting extradition.

Speaking to the BBC in May from Jordan's family home in the city of Marquette, Jordan's mother praised the police for their work tracking the sextortionists down.

But she said she had mixed feelings about the Ogoshis being behind bars.

"It's a relief that someone is being held accountable, but there's no good that's coming out of this situation for my family or for the individuals responsible's family," she said.

"I miss my son more than I can describe to you, but the mother of those men is probably missing her two sons as well now. She too is really just an innocent bystander of sextortion crime," said Jenn Buta.

Researchers and law enforcement agencies point to Nigeria as a hotspot for this type of crime.

In April, two Nigerian men were arrested after a schoolboy from Australia killed himself. Two other men are on trial in Lagos after the suicides of a 15-year-old boy in the US and a 14-year-old in Canada.

Nigerian authorities are also working with police in Scotland to investigate the case of 16-year-old Murray Dowey, who killed himself in December.

In January, US cyber-company Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) highlighted a web of Nigerian TikTok, YouTube and Scribd accounts sharing tips and scripts for sextortion. Many of the discussions and videos are in Nigerian Pidgin dialect.

Nigeria cyber-security professor Adedeji Oyenuga from Lagos State University says he hopes the news of Nigerians being sentenced will filter through to criminals and put them off.

"The Ogoshis case has already sent a bad signal. I am hearing from street level that it is having an effect and it might not stop criminals turning to these crimes, but it will likely reduce the numbers," he said.

There had been an increase in the number of local victims too and Professor Oyenuga says Nigerian police have had some success in tackling the criminals.

It is not the first time that some of Nigeria’s young, tech-savvy population has embraced a new wave of cyber-crime.

The term "Yahoo Boys" is used to describe a portion of the population that use cyber-crime to earn a living. It comes from the early 2000s wave of Nigerian Prince scam emails which spread through the Yahoo email service.

Dr Tombari Sibe, from cyber-security firm Digital Footprints Nigeria, says cyber-fraud such as sextortion has become normalised among young people in the country, but he hopes that news of the Ogoshis' sentencing spreads fast.

"They see cybercrime as a bloodless crime, with potentially lucrative financial rewards. This case needs to be given sufficient coverage to show these young people that sextortion can lead to loss of life and long prison sentences," he said.

#nunyas news

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lifestoriesofourworld · 8 months

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The son entered the university as a gift for his 17th birthday, which was a month before the summer exams. His mother was not yet 40 years old. She had divorced her husband when her son entered first grade, decided to devote herself to her son, and so she was happy when her son entered university the first time, because at that time they could not pay for the contract, and they did not want to postpone his studies for a year. In the autumn, my son entered the first year of university, and in addition to studying, he met people from the group. Everything was going well until, during one of the breaks, he was approached by a tall foreign student from Africa who was looking for a room to rent as half of the dormitory was undergoing renovation, and said that his parents would send him money to pay for the room and his own expenses. The son could not refuse and said that he would discuss the offer at home and give a final answer the next day. The foreign student said he would return the next day to find out the final answer. When the son returned from the university, he said that the foreign student wanted to rent a room. His mother agreed and said that the room was free and that they could use the money for additional needs that they had been denying themselves. The next day, the son agreed and the foreign student could move into the apartment where the son was living the following day. The day came when the son and his foreign friend were returning home after classes. Coming home early because the classes ended early and his mother was not home yet, the son decided to show the foreign student around the room and the apartment. When the mother returned home, he immediately introduced the foreign student who was renting the room. After the introduction, the mother suggested having dinner in the kitchen and discussing everything in detail. During dinner, they learned that the foreign student was a year older than her son and had come from Nigeria to study. After dinner, everyone went to bed.

It was just under three months before the New Year, and it had been a month since the international student had rented a room. It was his mother's birthday, she was expecting guests and, as is customary on such occasions, she wore a dress that only emphasised her figure. During the celebration, the foreign student complimented his son on his mother's beauty. After the birthday, the foreign student began to look at his mother differently. The son tried not to take these views seriously and attributed them to his youth. Shortly before the New Year, the foreign student asked the son what he could give his mother for the New Year. The son could not answer anything specific, except to say what things his mother likes and what she pays attention to. Then the foreign student decided to make a gift for his mother himself.

On New Year's Eve, when everyone sat down at the New Year's table, my mother wore the same dress she wore on her birthday. When the clock struck the first seconds of the new year, the first congratulations were heard and it was time to open presents, and the biggest gift was a gift from a foreign student for his girlfriend's mother in the form of a women's skin care kit. For the mother, this gift came as a surprise from the foreign student and she said that he did not need to spend so much money on the gift. The international student said that it was not just a gift, but a thank you for providing a room for the duration of his studies at the university. Subsequently, the foreign student repeatedly gave small gifts and even flowers, which the mother refused but accepted anyway. The son thought that this was a temporary phenomenon, that the foreign student would calm down and eventually everything would return to normal, as it had been before the new year.

It was spring, the beginning of March to be exact, and the mother's son was used to going to bed early because classes started at eight o'clock the next day, and one day he got out of bed shortly before midnight to go to the toilet. As he left his room to go to the toilet, he heard sounds coming from his mother's room. The son went over and opened the door, about 10 centimetres, and through the crack he saw his mother leaning against the wall, with a foreign student standing behind her, pacing back and forth. The son was shocked and confused by this situation. The mother leaned over and leaned on the bed as the foreign student approached her from behind and started walking back and forth. The sounds coming from the bed, as well as the mother's moans, were drowned out by the sound of the TV. After standing there for no more than 3 minutes, the son went to the toilet, and on his way back he stopped to see what was happening in his mother's room, and then the foreign student on the bed put his mother's legs on his shoulders and began to move back and forth. After standing there for a while, the son went to his room to go to bed, but he could not sleep for a long time because he had seen the scene in his mother's room. In the morning, the son woke up, but the foreign student was still asleep because he had to leave for university early. The mother was in the kitchen preparing breakfast, and the son pretended that nothing had happened, washed his face and sat down at the table. The mother and son were getting dressed when the foreign student woke up, and the mother said that she had prepared food for him and left it on the stove. The foreign student behaved as usual, as if nothing had happened during the night, and thanked his mother for breakfast. While studying at the university, the son kept thinking about what he had seen in his mother's room and whether what had happened between the foreign student and his mother that night would happen again the next time.

Returning home before everyone else, the son wanted to check if the situation that had happened the previous night would not happen again. His mother came home from work at her usual time, and the foreign student came home late because he had classes at the university until the evening. After dinner, the son went to his room and decided to wait for the usual time to see what would happen in his mother's room. The clock struck 23:00 and it was quiet in the corridor, so the son went out into the corridor, but when he passed his mother's room, he did not hear a sound and, opening the door, saw that his mother was sleeping peacefully, after which he closed the door and went to his room, thinking that it was a one-off incident. The next day, on Friday, everything was as usual: in the morning, my mother went to work, and my son and the foreign student left later than planned because there were few couples and classes started later. In the evening, there were no intrigues, everyone went to bed later because Saturday was a day off, and the son and the foreign student went to their rooms almost simultaneously. The son decided to check if the situation would repeat itself. Soon he heard a noise in the corridor and, after waiting for about 10 minutes, he went outside and saw that the door to the foreigner's room was not fully closed, so he opened the door a little and saw an empty bed. Then the son realised he had to go to his mother's room and decided to check it out. When he opened the door a little, he saw that the foreign student was lying in bed with his mother, and the TV was on, probably to drown out the sounds coming from the bed. While lying on the bed, the foreign student put his mother's legs on his shoulders and started moving back and forth. At first, the movements were slow and gradually began to intensify, and when the movements accelerated, the mother began to moan and then the son saw that his mother's legs were trembling, at which point it became clear that the mother had an orgasm. After 2-3 minutes, as soon as the mother came to her senses after the orgasm, the foreign student turned the mother over onto her stomach, then lay on top of her and began to make gradual back and forth movements. The son could not stand at the door for long because he was afraid of being seen, so he decided to leave early. When he returned to his room, the son concluded that sex between his mother and the foreign student did not take place every day, but at most 3-5 times a week, and further observations would confirm this.

This could not last. A month before his birthday, the son got out of bed to go to the toilet. As the son was walking to the toilet, a foreign student came out of the mother's room and it was a shock for everyone to meet and explain to the mother's son that he had accidentally entered the mother's room and his appearance allowed the son to ask the foreign student how long he had been in the mother's room and whether it was the first time he had entered it. The foreigner began to explain until the mother interrupted him, wanting to apologise to her son for his inappropriate behaviour. In the morning, when the mother got up early, she prepared food and went to work because the son and the foreign student had to go to classes at the university. When the son and the foreign student got up and sat down at the table after all the household chores, the foreign student offered to be present during sex with the mother as an apology. The son looked at him and thought why not. After some thought, the son agreed, and then the foreign student said that next time he would invite his mother's son. In the evening, when everyone gathered for dinner, the mother had no idea what would happen that night. When everyone went to their rooms, around 23:00, the foreign student entered the son's room and told him that he could get up and go to his mother's room. Upon entering the mother's room, the foreign student immediately went to turn on the TV, and when the mother woke up, she immediately asked what the foreign student was going to do. The son went to the other side of the room, where he took a chair, turned it around and sat down facing the bed. The mother got angry and got out of bed to make her son and the foreign student go to bed because they had to get up early tomorrow. The foreign student managed to undress and then grabbed the mother by the arm and threw her on the bed. The mother began to resist and shouted for him to stop immediately and asked her son to help, but the son just looked on. The foreign student asked her to calm down and tried to crawl between the mother's legs. When the foreign student was between the mother's legs, the resistance became less and he started moving back and forth. The mother realised that she would not be able to free herself so easily, so she stopped resisting and asked her son to leave the room, but the son ignored this request and continued to watch, while the mother began to moan more and look at her son with frightened eyes. The sex lasted about 30 minutes, after which the foreign student and the mother's son went to their rooms, leaving the mother crying in bed. In the morning, the mother was silent and did not say anything about what had happened the day before. In the evening, everyone gathered at the table and the mother said that what had happened was the last time, but the son said that everything was fine and they could continue, to which the mother replied that the son had no conscience to humiliate his mother like that. In the evening, the son and the foreign student decided not to do anything, and the next evening they repeated the same thing, and then the mother decided to agree without resistance. Then the son and the foreign student repeated the same thing many times, and the mother eventually got used to such situations.

When his son's birthday came, the foreign student decided to give him a video camera. It was an unusual gift for his son, and when the evening came, the foreign student suggested that he make his first video of his mother and the foreign student having sex. The son was interested in the idea and decided to make the video. The foreign student and the mother's son went to the mother's room and the son started filming and the mother told him to stop filming or it would be bad, but the foreign student quickly calmed the mother down and she started enjoying the sex.

In the middle of the summer, the foreign student returned home, and the second half of the summer was peaceful for the son and his mother.

At the end of the summer, when the foreign student returned before the new academic year. This time, the mother took the foreign student's request calmly, as if it were a matter of course, and even after dinner, the foreign student went to his mother's room, as he had done before. It is no longer a secret to the son that his mother and the foreign student indulge in intimate pleasures on weekends during the day if everyone stays at home. Life with the new academic year began in the same way as the previous one: the son and the foreign student went to university for classes, the mother went to work, and in the evening the foreign student occasionally came to his mother's room.

One day, the foreign student suggested that they go shopping at the weekend to buy something for his mother. The mother did not want to go for a long time and finally decided to go. The weekend came and the son and the foreign student got up early to go shopping. The foreign student, the son and the mother went to the same shopping centre. The shopping went well and everyone was home in the afternoon. The international student asked his mother to try on some new clothes and said that his mother should wear one of them in the evening. When evening came and everyone was sitting around the table, his mother was wearing a dress and sandals that she had bought at the mall during the day. After dinner, the foreign student would go with his mother to her room. Over time, this became the norm, and each time my mother wore different outfits that she had bought at the mall.

Meanwhile, as her birthday approached, a foreign student decided to give her a gift, a watch to be exact. On her birthday, my mother wore a dress she had bought at the mall and impressed the guests. After the birthday party, life went on as usual: the foreign student had sex with his friend's mother from time to time, and this continued until the new year. Over the past year, his mother had changed, changed her hairstyle and looked younger than before.

On New Year's Eve, the foreign student decided to make an unusual gift. When the clock struck the first seconds of the new year, the foreign student handed his mother a box with a ring, which was a declaration of love. It was a shock for the mother, who was speechless, and it was unusual for the son to be in such a situation. The mother looked at her son and asked what she should do, to which the son replied that it was a decision his mother should make. After some thought, the mother accepted the gift, and then the foreign student kissed the mother on the lips. After that, the mother's life changed, as the foreign student now sleeps in the same bed as his friend's mother.

A month later, the foreign student told his son that his mother was preparing for pregnancy, that sex had become more serious than before, and that she was only 40 years old and could become pregnant and carry a child. Two months after he told him this, his mother told him that she was pregnant, and three months later that she was having twins. The international student bought his friend's mother a black robe with patterns that showed her beautiful body. The foreign student registered the marriage and stayed to live with his mother. Later he plans to finish his studies at university and get a job, but for now he plans to provide for his family with money that will be sent to him from his home country, as his father works for an oil company.

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baelio · 2 months

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#money transfer #send money to nigeria

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teddyreblogslotf · 4 months

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whats the bennu lore. estoy curioso

BENNU IS MY GUY

okay you've opened the can of worms

so bennu enlisted in the army during WW2 because almost all young men did that. he had an arranged marriage with Ebube (his wife) because her parents wanted her to get out of Nigeria and Nigeria and England had connections, yknow. So they forcefully got married. He joined the army.

He meets Arthur Merridew (Jack's dad), Henry Allebach (Ralph's dad) and Mikah Volkov (Roger's dad). He ends up becoming Lieutenant Colonel by the time his service is almost over. Early in his career, the army sees a cannibalistic attack on the soldiers spanning the course of two years. Bennu helps solve this, but he gets PTSD because he watched his friends and colleagues be EATEN, and he witnessed one of the attacks firsthand. Hard to erase that memory.

Okay so in his final battle, he serves under Arthur (Major General) and he gets sent on a suicide mission, essentially. Arthur knew it was a suicide mission and just didn't tell Bennu. However, Mikah is with him and figures it out quickly and sacrifices his life to save Bennu's. His last words to Bennu are 'Take care of Roger for me.' because roger's mom had died of cancer 3 years earlier.

So Bennu adopts Roger for about 8 years (ages 4-12) before Roger goes into foster care. He acts as Roger's caregiver, but when Roger gets back from the island, Bennu pretty much disowns him because he doesn't have the money or facilities to take care of Roger, who is extremely mentally ill. He doesn't want Roger to suffer, so he sends him to a hospital to get treatment. He doesn't hate Roger for killing Simon, because he knows it wasn't really Roger.

But Simon is still dead. Simon is like his only child btw because him and Ebube just aren't in love. So he is an alcoholic for about 4 years after the island.

Roger finds him again when he's 16. Bennu goes to rehab and sobers up and readopts Roger.

Roger eventually learns how to fake empathy from observing Bennu's behaviour. Bennu essentially teaches Roger indirectly how to have humanity. It isn't genuine, but it keeps Roger from being executed for murder.

#lotf #lord of the flies #lord of the dads #lotf bennu #tw #trigger warning #tw alchohol mention #mail!!#anon #anonymous #lotf roger #tw cannibalism

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mariacallous · 5 months

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Most scammers and cybercriminals operate in the digital shadows and don’t want you to know how they make money. But that’s not the case for the Yahoo Boys, a loose collective of young men in West Africa who are some of the web’s most prolific—and increasingly dangerous—scammers.

Thousands of people are members of dozens of Yahoo Boy groups operating across Facebook, WhatsApp, and Telegram, a WIRED analysis has found. The scammers, who deal in types of fraud that total hundreds of millions of dollars each year, also have dozens of accounts on TikTok, YouTube, and the document-sharing service Scribd that are getting thousands of views.

Inside the groups, there’s a hive of fraudulent activity with the cybercriminals often showing their faces and sharing ways to scam people with other members. They openly distribute scripts detailing how to blackmail people and how to run sextortion scams—that have driven people to take their own lives—sell albums with hundreds of photographs, and advertise fake social media accounts. Among the scams, they’re also using AI to create fake “nude” images of people and real-time deepfake video calls.

The Yahoo Boys don’t disguise their activity. Many groups use “Yahoo Boys” in their name as well as other related terms. WIRED’s analysis found 16 Yahoo Boys Facebook groups with almost 200,000 total members, a dozen WhatsApp channels, around 10 Telegram channels, 20 TikTok accounts, a dozen YouTube accounts, and more than 80 scripts on Scribd. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Broadly, the companies do not allow content on their platforms that encourages or promotes criminal behavior. The majority of the Yahoo Boys accounts and groups WIRED identified were removed after we contacted the companies about the groups’ overt existence. Despite these removals, dozens more Yahoo Boys groups and accounts remain online.

“They’re not hiding under different names,” says Kathy Waters, the cofounder and executive director of the nonprofit Advocating Against Romance Scammers, which has tracked the Yahoo Boys for years. Waters says the social media companies are essentially providing the Yahoo Boys with “free office space” to organize and conduct their activities. “They’re selling scripts, selling photos, identifications of people, all online, all on the social media platforms,” she says. “Why these accounts still remain is beyond me.”

The Yahoo Boys aren’t a single, organized group. Instead, they’re a collection of thousands of scammers who work individually or in clusters. Often based in Nigeria, their name comes from formerly targeting users of Yahoo services, with links back to the Nigerian Prince email scams of old. Groups in West Africa can be often organized in various confraternities, which are cultish gangs.

“Yahoo is a set of knowledge that allows you to conduct scams,” says Gary Warner, the director of intelligence at DarkTower and director of the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Computer Forensics Research Laboratory. While there are different levels of sophistication of Yahoo Boys, Warner says, many simply operate from their phones. “Most of these threat actors are only using one device,” he says.

The Yahoo Boys run dozens of scams—from romance fraud to business email compromise. When making contact with potential victims, they’ll often “bomb” people by sending hundreds of messages to dating app accounts or Facebook profiles. “They will say anything they can in order to get the next dime in their pocket,” Waters says.

Searching for the Yahoo Boys on Facebook brings up two warnings: Both say the results may be linked to fraudulent activity, which isn’t allowed on the website. Clicking through the warnings reveals Yahoo Boy groups with thousands of members—one had more than 70,000.

Within the groups—alongside posts selling SIM cards and albums with hundreds of pictures—many of the scammers push people toward other messaging platforms such as Meta’s WhatsApp or Telegram. Here, the Yahoo Boys are at their most bold. Some groups and channels on the two platforms receive hundreds of posts per day and are part of their wider web of operations.

After WIRED asked Facebook about the 16 groups we identified, the company removed them, and some WhatsApp groups were deactivated. “Scammers use every platform available to them to defraud people and constantly adapt to avoid getting caught,” says Al Tolan, a Meta spokesperson. They did not directly address the accounts that were removed or that they were easy to find. “Purposefully exploiting others for money is against our policies, and we take action when we become aware of it,” Tolan says. “We continue to invest in technology and cooperate with law enforcement so they can prosecute scammers. We also actively share tips on how people can protect themselves, their accounts, and avoid scams.”

Groups on Telegram were removed after WIRED messaged the company’s press office; however, the platform did not respond about why it had removed them.

Across all types of social media, Yahoo Boys scammers share “scripts” that they use to socially manipulate people—these can run to thousands of words long and can be copied and pasted to different victims. Many have been online for years. “I’ve seen some scripts that are 30 and 60 layers deep, before the scammer actually would have to go and think of something else to say,” says Ronnie Tokazowski, the chief fraud fighter at Intelligence for Good, which works with cybercrime victims. “It’s 100 percent how they'll manipulate the people,” Tokazowski says.

Among the many scams, they pretend to be military officers, people offering “hookups,” the FBI, doctors, and people looking for love. One “good morning” script includes around a dozen messages the scammers can send to their targets. “In a world full of deceit and lies, I feel lucky when see the love in your eyes. Good morning,” one says. But things get much darker.

The Yahoo Boys have been behind a recent wave of sextortion across the United States and elsewhere, says Paul Raffile, an intelligence analyst at the Network Contagion Research Institute who is closely tracking the criminals. Broadly speaking, during sextortion, a scammer will use intimate or explicit images to try to get someone to pay them money. “The Yahoo Boys are the principal threat actor behind the surge of sextortion that we’re seeing over the past 18 months,” Raffile says. “They are responsible for forcing dozens of teens to suicide.”

In a series of posts in one Telegram channel, highlighted by Warner, who is also involved in Intelligence for Good, one cybercriminal can be seen walking others through how to run a sextortion scam. They say they tricked people into sharing nude images—posting screenshots of the conversation—and explained ways other people can replicate it. “Hey I am posting your naked pictures on social media and Facebook,” says a sample message cybercriminals could use. “Am not just posting it am sending copies of it to your area,” the message says, before demanding $700.

While the scripts like these are shared on all social media channels, WIRED found at least 80 on the document-sharing service Scribd. The company removed them after WIRED got in touch, with a spokesperson saying there are limits on what people can upload and that the company has automated and manual reviews to remove content. “We’re actively building out new capabilities to broaden the scope of content moderation coverage to include a wider range of concerning text and image violations,” the spokesperson says. Some of the scripts had been online since 2020, and on pages where they were removed a “reading suggestions” section recommended other scam scripts.

Raffile says the Yahoo Boys have been able to “thrive” online “due to lack of moderation around all the illicit material” that they’re sharing. “They’re acting with impunity because they feel they will never get caught,” Raffile says.

Beyond the messaging platforms, the Yahoo Boys have a presence on TikTok and YouTube. “We design our app to be inhospitable to those who seek to exploit our community and we’ve removed this content for violating our policies,” a TikTok spokesperson says.

“Our policies prohibit spam, scams, or other deceptive practices that take advantage of the YouTube community,” a YouTube spokesperson says. “We also prohibit videos that encourage illegal or dangerous activities. As such, we have terminated the flagged channels for violating our policies and our terms of service.” They add that the company removed accounts for breaching policies about harmful content, spam, and generally violating its terms of service.

The accounts posted tutorials about how to scam people, link to groups on messaging apps, and promote technology for fake video calls. On TikTok, multiple accounts include carousels of images that the scammers can use in their efforts to create believable personas. Some of these include posts of elderly women for scammers who are in “need of grandma pictures for proof” of their fake identities and others for scammers who “need kids pics” for their victims.

As well as being a threat to thousands of people around the world, the Yahoo Boys can be quick to adopt new technologies. David Maimon, a professor at Georgia State University and the head of fraud insights at the identity-verification firm SentiLink, has monitored Yahoo Boys for years and says their techniques have evolved alongside new technologies.

“To build rapport with victims, the fraudsters first used text messages, then started sending recorded audio messages, to now using deepfake tools to communicate with victims live,” Maimon says. “On some of the markets we now also see the use of cloned voices. It is now accompanied with sending physical items to victims such as presents, food deliveries, and flowers.” Within some groups, they use “nudification” tools to turn photos of people clothed into nude photos, and deepfake video calls.

While the Yahoo Boys have been active for years, all the experts spoken to for this piece say they should be treated more seriously by social media companies and law enforcement. “It’s time that we start looking at Yahoo Boys as a dangerous organization, transnational organized crime, and start giving it some of those labels,” Raffile says.

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astrologicaldiary · 7 months

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Aries north node transit and Libra south node transit : Scary Enlightment and Revolution (hopefully....)

Sooo....Ummm, some of the so-called astrologers didn't really talk about the significance of these node transits. I have always wanted to talk about this topic, but there are some reasons:

-Life has LIFING

-There are so many genocides happening everywhere!

-The government leaders are preparing us to be a Hunger Games society by pushing out laws to imprison and control us. I guess nobody isn't being mad enough to go FRENCH!

-Sending out our taxes to fund genocides!

There is so much shit happening, and I'm a human being and I feel like I want to make a change but these evil entities are limiting it and violating our basic human rights.

I'm going to explain about these two nodes, and you can see how it's relate to current circumstances. FYI, I'm not a professional astrologer but I'm a learner and a curious being.

Currently, we have a north node transit in Aries. I thought that I would like this energy but I'm thinking that it's kind of scary. As you can see, there are too many wars happening in our countries that is very cruel and evil. In these conflicts, there is a lot of abuse that is happening to innocent civilians and some of to leave home. And in Congo , sadly some women were raped violently. This is a very traumatic time for everyone in the middle of the attack. I mean we see that our so-called powerful nations are in support of these attacks and seems like they don't want to stop the attacks anytime soon ! To me , I'm like how many more bloodsheds do we have to witness....Right now, it has overpassed the limit.

I guess the positive side of this, is that true and genuine human beings are fighting back! People are protesting, donating, and spreading awareness about what's going on. Some are going out their ways to disturb government officials at their homes and gatherings, AND AS THEY SHOULD!

You are silent about the genocides occuring but seeing how much our taxes are being used and sending it to a terrorist state that is killing innocent people and they are proud of it! Yeah, stop using my money!

A lot of people are being hopeful and creating ways to be heard to make a change. If you are doing whatever you can, I love you, and I know that it's tiring, but please don't lose hope. These people who are living in terror need our voices even more NOW!

With the Libra south node transit, this has manifested as people separating themselves from political parties, as you can see we see in the government of those who disagree with GenocideJoe. I saw the clip of the State of the Union, some weren't even applauding for that devil. And the government is trying to away women's right to control their bodies...

There are a few that is calling out celebs for being silent and not saying a word! There were a few that went to a charity as a photo opp just to show that they care about the cause...but if you aren't dumb, clearly it's a publicity stunt! I can't even listen to "Break My Soul" anymore...I know that B is a talented woman, but I'm honestly disappointed in her the most because she was on this trend of black liberation. But I'm not surprised either because we saw her speech she did on Instagram for BLM when an innocent black man named George Floyd was unalived by a cop, her speech was a bit off. It was almost like she wasn't connected, and it seemed like she was reading off a paper and she was very silent about what was happening in Nigeria... I guess it's fair to say that these celebs like her only care about their capital and their brand so much! But what I do is that when you die, that money and fame aren't going to be with in the grave! Some fans are stupid and delusional, and willing to side with celebs but if shit hit the fan, these celebs aren't even going to look our way!

And with this south node transit, we are seeing people not wanting to unite. Clearly, it's a very divided time. Even among social activists, there was some drama on TikTok. There's a hero name Angie who created a #CoffeeRevolution as a way to meet other open-minded individuals in person and make plans to better our communities and make a positive change. But there were other people who disagree and feared that they might end up meeting FBI agents or they didn't feel comfortable meeting strangers from the internet... I'm like we will never be free or seek change because of this shit! Now, I understand, but sooner or later we gonna have to leave social media and meet on the streets. And now I'm hearing that New York subways are under surveillance by national guards...And TiKTOK might be banned soooo... we gonna have to meet up regardless.

And we are seeing these dangerous laws to silence us and ignoring the genocides. And we see that most of the politicians are sponsored by a group called AIPAC so it makes sense why we can speak or say that terrorist state name! Oh, and we saw how they used western media to weaponize people that went against them about their actions. It seems like 9/11 when the media was spewing hate saying that Muslims are terrorists and bad guys! But all know who are truly the terrorists now...

I'm not really fucking with these node transits at all...But hopefully with Pluto in Aquarius, it could bring so positivity and make our world a better place.

#pluto in aquarius #aries north node #north node transit #libra south node #south node transit #astrology #astrology transits #Rafah Oscars #congo genocide #palestine #keep eyes on sudan

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