Call center for romance scam: 800 arrests in Nigeria

The Nigerian anti-corruption agency, the EFCC, has arrested 792 suspected fraudsters in one fell swoop. They worked in a call center that occupied a seven-storey office building in Lagos. The call center is said to have preferably used German and Italian telephone numbers and specialized in romance scams. The main target was investment fraud with cryptocurrencies.

The EFCC (Economic and Financial Crimes Commission) emphasizes that the people behind the scam are not Nigerians. The call center employees contacted people in the USA, Canada, Mexico and various European countries via WhatsApp, Instagram and Telegram. The perpetrators' initial aim was to engage the victims in conversation and ultimately to entice them to trust them romantically. The phone numbers used for Whatsapp are said to be mainly from Germany and Italy. Of course, it didn't work without local infrastructure: "Investigators found 500 SIM cards from local network operators on the fourth floor alone," reports the EFCC.

Qualification: good typing

According to the authorities, the apparently still unknown operators of the call center were looking for young people who could type well on keyboards. If they passed the entrance test, a two-week training course followed. They were taught the art of playing foreign women in love and convincing victims to invest in fraudulent schemes. To this end, an "investment shopping platform" was set up at www.yooto.com (no longer online, note), which charged 35 US dollars for registration. It enticed people to allegedly invest in cryptocurrencies and companies.

Once the relationship with the victim was established, those operating in Lagos passed their victims on to other perpetrators. According to the EFCC's findings, the latter operate outside Nigeria and are responsible for the actual exploitation of the victims. The call center employees are said not to know who their employers are. Those arrested had not received any employment contracts or other documents about their employment. They were paid in cash or by bank transfers from private accounts.

Among the 792 arrested were almost 150 Chinese and dozens of other Asians. The EFCC suspects that the ringleaders are also foreigners: "Foreigners are taking advantage of our nation's unfortunate reputation as a safe haven for fraudsters to gain a foothold here and hide their nasty criminal enterprises," EFCC boss Ola Olukoyede said on Monday, "But, as this operation shows, there will be no hiding places for criminals in Nigeria."

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