Who are the Yahoo Boys? The Real Life Nigerian Scam, Explained

In Hulu’s ‘Hey Beautiful: Anatomy of a Romance Scam,’ the primary focus is on several women who fell victim to online romance scams, only to realize that the charming men they lent thousands of dollars to were scammers. Although they were seemingly scammed by different individuals, they were lured by the photos of Brian Haugen. At the heart of it all were the Young Boys, who are known to trap lonely people using a particular set of tactics.

The Yahoo Boys Target the Lonely People of the West

Since Nigeria is a densely populated nation with a shortage of jobs, it has become the base of operations for some controversial and shady organizations in the past few decades. In order to earn money, many people have turned to internet scams of different kinds and become a part of the Yahoo Boys, a group of Nigerian cyber criminals who hunt down vulnerable and lonely victims for monetary gain. The Yahoo Boys seemingly started operating around 2000 by the Nigerian Prince email scam, using fake Yahoo email addresses to reach out to their potential victims.

Fast forward to about 25 years later, the Yahoo Boys are considered one of the biggest drivers of romance scams on social media platforms. The tech-savvy group is mainly based in Nigeria, but over the years, it has expanded its branches to other parts of the globe. By showing off the results of their successful scams online, the Yahoo Boys tend to attract more people to join the rich-quick online scheme and partake in various fraudulent schemes, including online romance scams. The boys usually work as a team, which is known as the HK (Hustle Kingdom). Reportedly, there are numerous HKs around the world, sharing a common goal.

Each HK often books a hotel room, where a dozen scammers stay together. While some focus on chatting with a victim, others research personal details about them in order to find their pain points and what makes them tick. All in all, HKs work independently in small groups and share information amongst themselves. The loneliness crisis in the West and the lack of jobs in Nigeria drive the scams conducted by the Yahoo Boys. They also reportedly sell scripts and guides that can help scammers target more people. On top of that, they also share links to photos that can be used to create fake social media accounts.

Meta Recently Took Strict Actions Against the Nigerian Scams

By assuming a fake identity, they usually pass themselves off as people in financial need. This is exactly what happened with the scam victims featured in ‘Hey Beautiful: Anatomy of a Romance Scam.’ Roxy, Annette, Gaby, and Kathy were scammed by seemingly different individuals, but using the face of a makeup artist named Brian Haugen while pretending to be Scott Hall, Mark da Silva, Michael Silver, and John Durian. By the end, the Cyber Investigations Analyst managed to find the source of the scams, which turned out to be in Nigeria. Due to the increased activity of the Yahoo Boys, many people have also fallen victim to another borderless crime called financial sextortion.

In these kinds of scams, scammers blackmail people, usually minors, using their real or fake compromising photos, asking a hefty amount of money in return. Meta claimed that they countered the emergence of the Yahoo Boys. In July 2024, it was reported that Meta had removed around 63,000 Instagram accounts based in Nigeria that tried to target people with different kinds of scams, including financial sextortion. Meta claimed that they have also removed thousands of Facebook accounts, pages, and groups operated by the Yahoo Boys, who were trying to recruit and organize new scams and scammers.