Does Cyber Crime Pay? Depends Who You Ask
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Written By Reprise Media | May 24, 2006 | Share This
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Like a lot of millionaires, Akin enjoys the finer things: laptops, cameras, fancy sneakers and flat-screen TVs.
Unlike a lot of millionaires, Akin is only 14.
Fortune Magazine has a fascinating article on this young man from Nigeria who has made himself rich by scamming overseas rubes out of their hard-earned dollars.
“Akin’s main office is an Internet cafe in the Ikeja section of Lagos. He spends up to ten hours a day there, seven days a week, huddled over one of 50 computers, working his scams…Attempts to speak to government officials about Internet crime were futile…Some officials, who asked not be identified, said young people are drawn to Internet crime as a way of getting back at a society that has no plans for them. Others see it as a form of reparation for the sins of the West. Or as Akin puts it, ‘White people are too gullible. They are rich, and whatever I gyp them out of is small change to them.’”
If you’ll remember in fall of last year we wrote about the human side of 419 scammers, though reading the words above is enough to make one’s blood boil, humanity or no.
More perspective on the story here on Techdirt.
Topics: Legal Issues |