SCARS™ Guest Editorial: Sakawa Boys (Ghanaian Internet Scammer Gangs)

By Bernard Vance, an Anti-Scam Warrior

About Bernard Vance: Bernard was an old school “scam fighter” online, meaning he and the people he worked with attempted to solve the scamming problem by exposing scammers on social media. He devoted considerable effort to understanding how these scams worked in the hope of finding a solution. Ironically the failure of these groups (many of them are still around) is a major part of the reason why SCARS was created to address the professional shortcomings of many of these groups. Bernard was a conscientious defender of victims online, and it is for these reasons and the knowledge he accumulated that we present the following. He was also a United States Army veteran that served his country with distinction.

SCARS NOTE:  The following was written independently and submitted to SCARS back in 2017 but had not been previously published. The author is not a part of the SCARS Team nor is he a volunteer, though he has been a member of SCARS for several years. While some of the information is aged, much of it is still relevant. We thank Bernard for his many years trying to help victims understand the workings of romance scams from West Africa. 

LEGAL: The following does not necessarily reflect the opinions of SCARS, its management or directors, or volunteers. These are the opinions of the author. It has been edited to correct spelling and grammar, and formatting.

Sakawa

Sakawa is a widespread practice in Ghana and other nearby African countries which combines modern Internet-based fraud practices with ethnic (traditional) or religious rituals. The rituals which are mostly in the form of sacrifices made so that a supreme being aids them (culprits) in getting whatever they may ask from their victims without their victims denying their request. The term Sakawa initially referred to specific online scams but has since broadened to include all types of online frauds and scams mainly targeting foreigners. The rise in the popularity of Sakawa has been fueled by the Sakawa culture, this has now become a subculture in Ghana. Stylish clothes, luxury cars, and enormous wealth only serve to promote this activity. In clusters of poverty, it can be seen as a way of survival.

Sakawa Boys

Sakawa Boys are a derivative of the Nigerian scammers model and methods, however, they have refined and expanded to the types of scams and number of scammers involved with international Internet scamming.   Ghanaian Scammers are more aggressive and at times more violent, they have even been known to kill their victims who are in their grasp (in Ghana) as soon as they are done with them.   They have developed vast networks of scammers in their country, Monkeys (supporters) and Mules (Money Movers) to expand their reach, they help entrap new victims and insulate themselves from exposure, identification, capture, and prosecution.

Many of these Ghanaian Scammers mix Islam, Christianity, and Witchcraft in their lives to help them facilitate their scamming and justify why they are stealing money and assets from innocent people around the world.    This mixture at times can be very vulgar and violent, in which people and animals are harmed or killed to fulfill the demands of the witchcraft and receive the spell (or blessing) that will make them invincible as a scammer.

These Scammers, spend the money they have stolen from their victims on luxury items that many of their victims could never afford in the first place and delight showing off in social media (Facebook, Instagram, Google+) what they have bought and the parties they are having with their victim’s money.   Many of them are also aligned with Terrorist organizations (such as ISIS, Boka Haram, etc) and send a portion of the money they stole to support terrorism.   The Ghana economists now see has scamming as a part of their economy called “New Money”    The flashy lifestyle bring in many new scammers who want to partake in the wealth and luxury they see from the Sakawa Boys, so much so that many of the more efficient scammers have started “Scammers Schools” to train the new internet scammers and have begun forming them into criminal enterprises (gangs & cartels), placing them in countries all around the world, especially in Asia and East Asia, and some in Central and South America, this is done through the use of the student Visa Programs most countries have for University students.

Do to the fact that bribery and corruption is part of the culture in Ghana, most scammers are protected from prosecution due to payoffs of law enforcement and the judicial system.  Everyone is taking a cut of the money brought in from the money transfer employees to the monkeys and mules, law enforcement and the judicial system, government officials, witchcraft (JuJu) priests, and terrorist organizations, thus fueling the economy with New Money.    As these scamming networks grow (Ganga) they bring in Millions of dollars each month into the scamming organizations

Who are Sakawa Boys (Ghanaian Scammers)?

It has been said that these scammers are very poor, depressed, young African boys that have been poorly educated, living in a poor economy and just struggling to help support their family.  And they get men and women to fall in love with the Avatars they use and storyline that they put an emotional spin on, but who are these scammers really.  Why do these young boys and men find a life of deluding men and women into giving them large sums of money?   What would drive them to such a life?

No Wrong, in the past six years of research and studying these scammers I have found the totally opposite has come to light.   These Scammers are, for the most part, university-educated men (and women) who have chosen what is a Criminal way of life,  They have essentially become Criminals, Internet Predators, White slavers, Pimps, Thugs, Drug Dealers, and Terrorist that prey on the ones that lost their loved ones, divorced, depressed, alone, Animal lovers, gamers or any reason that they can wiggle their way into the lives of their mark (victim).

Sakawa Witchcraft:

Many of the Ghanaian Scammers employ the use of witchcraft to gain mastery over the victims they scam, to get this blessing or spell from the witch (Holy Man) they are required to pay and then do things at the guidance of the Witch and show proof.   They may be required to get the blood from a menstruating woman, have sex with their sister, rape a virgin girl, have sex with animals, kill someone or an animal and the list just goes on and on.   This is to make them more effective at scamming their victims.   Many have reported that if they do not follow the witch’s instructions, that they will be cursed and die, with all the riches going to someone else

“Sakawa Boys Gh” (Fraud Boys Association)

This is an organization that communicated through Facebook. The site that was put up by Ghanaian internet scammers to share information and guidance in the art of defrauding anyone that they can use every scheme or fraud that they can think of.   This site is currently an open site and has about 150 members mostly black Ghanaian males but some girls are involved also. [As of the publishing of this article, it has moved from Facebook to the Darkweb]

There are many gangs. One you will see from time to time are the “ITZ” gang – they will have this in their social media profile names.

How It Works

These criminals (Yes, they are criminals) are only after our assets and money we have and do not care how they get It,  using as many schemes and lies to convince their victims to give them money or gifts.  Research has shown that these criminals will keep taking or stealing money and assets from their victims even when they know that it is taking the medicine or food out of their victim’s mouth or if it even turns them out of their homes.   These criminals will use love, friendship, greed, adventure, emotions, Stability, a hope for a new life and family, to try and get into our lives and become part of our lives and gain our trust.

Many of these scammers are also physiologically “con artists” and have no inbred stops, no conscience. That’s what it means to be a psychopath. If anything, these pathological criminals feel justified in taking your money, it was because that in their mind “You deserved to be taken, you asked for it.”  or “If God (Allah) allows it, it must be right” or it is “Retribution for Slavery” and many other reasons that they should and can steal from you as to them you are just a “Mugu” (Damn Fool)  if you fall for their stories and send (Give ) your money to them.

Why is this dangerous? Because it means that these criminals will pressure you to the end of your resources, regardless of the pain and grief it causes you. Neither children, nor the elderly, nor the fragile of health are immune from their attack. It does not matter to these criminals that they may be taking your last dime, nor does it matter to them that you may need the promised wealth to pay for a dire need. These pathological criminals will take your money to the detriment of your mental health, and financial well-being. They will promise you everything and anything, but never deliver, even knowing that their scam may ultimately cause your death.

There is never any love or emotion on their part, during any part of these scams, as the victims are just a mark to these criminals and when they are bleed dry of every asset, these pathological criminals just throw them aside leaving them broken financially, emotionally and many times without the ability to get or look for help. This is due to the psychological programming they had endured that left them in totally isolated and devastated and that is what makes this crime so egregious.   Their excessive greed takes control their mind and their demanding desire to make quick money has been given as major reasons why they fall into these crimes. They are living zombies in human bodies, heartless, ruthless.

“Just a Job”

This was sent to me by a Scammer: “stop commenting about scamm.. do you know scamming is our Job? we scamm till we die and no one can stop us from it!!!!!!!!!!!! foooool … foooool”

So who are these criminals and scammers?   Well, for the first place they are criminals, internet predators and terrorists, nothing more (Yes, in accordance with Interpol and FBI as identified many of these scammers are associated with terrorist organizations).   In many countries that they have been operating, when caught, it was discovered that they were involved in the drug trade (moving and pushing drugs), they have African women and pimp them out as prostitutes and sex slaves, if a lady travels to meet them in their country, she can be entrapped and forced into white slavery and become a sex slave of the criminal and also forced to participate in the criminal activities.   There are cases where victims have been killed when their usefulness to the criminal was ended or where the victim could expose the criminal activities.

Yes, these criminals come from many countries, but the most active in Ghanaian, These  Scammers that have become known as “Sakawa Boys,”  have their own pages on Facebook, And have infiltrated many of the local African law enforcement agencies and Judicial systems with bribes to protect them.   The leaders of these criminal organizations are will be insolated as that have many layers of underlings to do their dirty work and protect them if a deal goes wrong or if they get their cover story blown

THE TYPE OF SCAMS MOST PREVALENT?

While the scammers will use any scam that makes them money the most insidious it the Romance Scam (Male Avatar /Female Avatar) and The Military Romance scam (Military Avatar).   Now we see several different patterns depending on the target victim and each will be explored separately.  These are:

1. Female Avatars: to scam male victims
2. Male Avatars: to scam female victims
3. Military Avatars: mostly to scam female victims.

[SCARS NOTE: what he means by Avatars is the stolen or fake identities on the profiles they use to scam their victims]

Each of these Romance Scams is similar but takes different approaches in the little traps and snares that are used to ensnare the heart, emotions, and mind of the intended victim.  By nature, Romance Scams first start out by developing an emotional bond (a romance) with the victim and then use that psychological and emotional control to either steal from the victim or involve the victim in the scammer’s criminal activities; using the victim’s bank account for a certain “business” transaction they do in the country of the victim, using the victim identities like passport, address, telephone numbers to scam other victims in the same area. Of course, the victims are not aware of these.

Very good romance scammers groom (psychologically and emotional programs) their victim over a period of weeks or sometimes months before they start the scam and are much more successful in reaching their ultimate goal of stealing as much funds as they can before they are caught or the victim is completely drained of any resources and discarded.   Whereas young or inexperienced romance scammers jump too quickly into the scam (within days some as early as 48 hours into the scam) and get caught before they have full completely psychologically ensnared their victims.

[SCARS NOTE: The author is not an expert in the types of manipulations and psychological controls used, and so is describing them in different terms based upon his experience]

All these scams start out with a soft introduction from a social or dating website where the scammers introduce themselves (as their Avatar) and start by finding common ground, whether it be the need for companionship, dating, friendship, a game you are playing, hobbies you like, travels, support group sites, or sports.   To the scammers, it does not matter, as they are just trying to establish a foothold in your life, and start building a cyber-relationship.   Next comes the exchange of pictures (The Avatars, red flag if you can check the picture with Google image or Tin Eye) and the start of the lie (scam) begins in earnest.  These pictures are to ease your mind that there is someone who is special and might be interested in you, someone who is normal and has a nice persona and life that you would like to be friends with.  Everything that they write to you will be now colored by the image of the photograph of the Avatar that was sent to you.

A good and experienced Romance Scammer will slowly lead you on and just drop very small hints that this friendship could grow and be different by evolving into a relationship. Now, this is where the scammer quietly gathers as much information about you from asking questions, to looking at your social websites, then harvesting as much information as they can, copying, and reviewing all the conversations that you have been doing with them to find the points that they are looking for in order to start entering into your life. These points of entry could be:

1. Divorce
2. Children
3. Separation
4. Games Sites you attend or play
5. Loss of a loved one (especially be careful in grief support sites)
6. Financial hardship
7. Illnesses
8. Hobbies
9. Places that you want to visit and travel
10. Sports teams that you follow
11. Friends on Facebook, Skype, NetLog and other social networks.
12. Members of online clubs, such as Photography, Recipes, Reading, Writing, Hiking, and Running, etc.
13. Animal Rights groups

Ghanaian Scammers have infected all aspects of the internet and are looking for any common ground that they can develop that could lead you to open up your heart and life to them so they can start the psychological and emotional program that will lead you to become enamored with them and slowly entrapped in their scheme.   The story that they spin is developed to get you to empathize with them and start opening your heart to them, again this depends on:

1. The type of romance scam they are using on you will depend on whether you are male or female.
2. The range of age you are probably looking for if it is a male avatar (if you are around 40 years old, then these scammers will be the same age or a bit older), and if it is a female Avatar she will be between 24  and 34 years of age regardless of your age.
3. The type of friendship, companionship, or romance you are looking for.

As soon as possible, these scammers begin to try and get you to leave the protection of the site that they meet you in, and then they get you to start communicating directly with them, first with email, then to one of the Instant Messengers (Big Red Flag).

Here is where they (the scammers) can begin to program your emotions using some of the latest and very effective psychological techniques that are designed to breakdown your internal safeguards and start the emotional entrapment. This is a technique that is used to isolate you from your friends and other safeguards, first to make you feel good about starting a new friendship, then step by step they begin to softly demand more and more of your time and emotions as they slowly attempt to bind your heart and mind to them.  This may take days or even months.

[SCARS NOTE: Here the author was referring to Gaslighting and other manipulative technicques]

The scammers build a profile and a story life to meet your wants and needs as they can be anything (that you want) as they are making up a life to meet the dreams you have for your life, and will tailor their story to meet your dreams.  Step by step these criminals will give you promises of a new life that meets all your emotional needs,  wants, and dreams.   This is done by first giving you the emotional support (Beautiful words of love and support, Red Flag) and then building a promise of a new life with and for you (Red flag). This is reinforced by making you feel that you are the center of their life, by words and letters of endearment, making your heart feel loved and wanted.

Now, they will start gaining your empathy with the story of some losses in their life (Red Flag) and how you will also fulfill that loss to get to you invested in them also, tugging at your heartstrings.  Always it will involve a loss of their loved one (wife, husband or boy/girlfriend) (Red Flag) and most of the time they will have been left with a child (usually only one, Red Flag) that is being cared for by some family member in another country, or a Nanny (Red Flag).   All this is to gain your empathy and with the intention to start getting you invested in their life so that you will see yourself as the one who will fill in the emptiness in their life and become the mother or father of a child that has lost his/her other parent.

Military romance scams are similar to a regular romance scam, but using military personnel deployed overseas in a combat zone.  The denigration of these good soldiers/officers and the military by these internet predators (romance scammers) and terrorists are trying to make it seem our military are criminals, stealing from the countries and people they are protecting. These terrorists cannot defeat our soldiers on the battlefield and now are using military scams to destroy the reputations of our soldiers and officers.

[SCARS NOTE: We do not believe there is any intention of doing reputation harm to members of the military, this is just about money]

These terrorists are now physically targeting the military and soldiers around the world. ISIS (An Islamic Terrorist Organization) is using Facebook to target our military personnel who have Facebook pages.   All military personnel has been instructed to delete all military pictures. Supporters of ISIS have already carried out attacks in the United States, France, Indonesia, Africa, Spain, and Canada and tried to in Australia and Germany.

Anyone that says they are military on social media should be considered a scammer and terrorist.

Scams

1. Counterfeit money orders and checks sent in the mail from the scammer to be deposited in the victim bank account and send back the cash by Western Union or Money Gram. This is money laundering and is a Federal crime punishable with jail time.
2.  Asked to open a checking account to deposit checks for Scammer. This also is money laundering and is a Federal crime punishable with jail time.
3. The scammer claims they’ve been mugged, shot, in an auto accident, arrested or their money, passport, and ID was stolen. Many times they will send you fake police reports and need immediate money for food, medical and other expenses.
4. The scammer needs money for a hotel/motel bill and the manager is holding their ID and passport. (This is a problem for the Embassy/Consult to assist in as that is part of their mission) 
5. They lost the company money and cannot pay their employees. They need money to cover payroll or cash payroll checks.   This is outright stealing of your money.
6.  The scammer sends you blank checks sent in the mail for the victim to fill out and send out to scammer “clients” which in reality are other victims. This is money laundering and a federal crime.
7. The scammer arranges for you to come to their country to meet and marry, you risk theft, rape, identify theft, and murder. (This is very risky, and if you survive you may be forced to become part of the scammer’s gang and operations or legally married to a scammer in a green card fraud)
8. The scammer when caught, confesses what they are doing, claims to have truly fallen in love with you, but they continue to ask for money. This is just a continuation of the scam trying to keep control of your emotions and empathy.
9. The scammer plans to come to your country to marry you but has an accident or other tragedy on the way to the airport. They are asking for money for the hospital bills or other expenses. This is an outright stealing of your money.
10. They need money for a plane ticket and BTA (Basic Travel Allowance, this does not exist).
11. The scammer is on the way to the states to visit you but is held up in Customs and needs money for his/her release.  That is what the consulates are for and customs will just send the scammer back to his home country on the next flight.
12. The scammer ships packages to the victim’s home to have them remailed to the scammer. These packages are goods and products bought with stolen credit card numbers and now they need you to reship the packages to them.  This is receiving and distributing stolen good and is a crime, you could be held fined and jailed if convicted.
13. The scammer sending counterfeit money through the mail to the victim. Handling counterfeit money is a federal crime, investigated by the Secret Service, and prosecuted as a federal crime.
14. The scammer has the victim send money to Canada or Mexico. This also is money laundering and is a Federal crime punishable with jail time.
15. Scammer sending a package filled with envelopes to the victim to have the envelopes mailed to other victims. Checks or Money Orders are in the envelopes. This also is money laundering and is a Federal crime punishable with jail time.
16. A Doctor contacts victim to inform the scammer was in an accident but survived and needs their medical bills paid as the victim is the only one who can help. (Most third world countries medical and hospital expenses must be paid upfront before any procedure or treatment will take place).
17. The scammer or relative sick in the hospital needs money for the operation medication, and Dr. fees (Even when they are in the hospital they can IM with you because the doctor has a laptop and is so very generous to let them use it). In most third world countries medical and hospital expenses must be paid upfront before any procedure or treatment will take place.
18. The scammer has catalogs sent to the victim’s home with the scammer’s name on them. Helping them establish identity in your country.
19. The Scammer has a business but needs to have merchandise shipped to the victim’s house, and then have the victim ship the merchandise to the scammer. These packages are goods and products bought with stolen credit card numbers and now they need you to reship the packages to them.  This is receiving and distributing stolen goods and is a crime, you could be held fined and jailed if convicted.
20. The scammer needs money because doesn’t have enough of her/his own money to get her/his newly acquired merchandise out of the country. This is outright stealing of your money.
21. The scammer needs money because they cannot cash a check at a local bank or use credit cards. This is outright stealing of your money.
22. The scammer asks for money to give to her/his family as a promise to the family. They claim this is a tradition or a wedding custom. This is outright stealing of your money.
23. The scammer has a vision from god that he/she and the victim has to obey, where God wants them to donate some/all of their monthly income for a month. The scammer went on a fast for 3 days and during that time God revealed to him/her where they would donate this money (sending it by Western Union) to some needy community in some third world country. This is outright stealing of your money.
24. Is working as a missionary and has been shot, needs money for surgery, and medication. This is outright stealing of your money.
25. Needs money for a child in an orphanage for his/her life-saving operation or adoption of a child. This is outright stealing of your money.
26. Has a Business opportunity for the victim. This is outright stealing of your money.
27. Has an Investment opportunity for the victim. This is outright stealing of your money.
28. Has an inheritance opportunity for the victim. This is outright stealing of your money.
29. The scammer plans for the real estate business after they (the victim and scammer) receive the money in the trunks in the securities company in Holland, including legal looking documents. This is a false come on to get you to invest in a nonexistent scheme.   In order to obtain funds, you are told to pay fees for attorneys, certificates, storage, bank transfers, bank releases, money laundering clearance, anti-terrorist clearances, courier services, storage (demurrage), etc.
30. The scammer claims to be buying a business. The business belonged to a friend of his who wanted to retire. This business was currently netting 30-40K each month in revenue claimed by the scammer. The scammer needed funds to complete the purchase of the business. Papers (fake papers) were provided for the purchase agreement which had the victim name on them included as the scammer’s wife. This is outright stealing of your money.
31. The scammer has 200 bars of 24K Ghanaian gold, left behind from her/his deceased Grandmother, each bar with a value of $16,000 dollars in the U.S. but had no value in Ghana. He/she (scammer) was to fly to the states with the gold and then the Immigration Customs Department at the Ghana airport called the victim. The (scammer) was arrested for trying to get out of the country with undocumented gold. The victim was told the (scammer) would go to prison for life if the police came and the victim contact information would be forwarded over to Interpol and be traced to the local authorities here in the U.S. This is outright stealing of your money.
32. The victim was told they would lose their job and be arrested. The (scammer) could be released if ($3000) was sent for the gold consignment and immigration papers. Two days later the victim was told the gold was sold to the Ghana bank and was worth 3.3 million U.S. dollars. Then was asked to give personal bank account information so the funds would be transferred into the victim bank account immediately (it never happened). Once they have your account information they will drain your account of any funds available.   This is outright stealing of your money.
33. The scammer has funds belonging to Saddam Hussein’s (or some other person) family in a consignment registered as Government Diplomatic Package and insured by the International Guarantee bond (IGB). The amount is $21 Million us dollars. They want to move this money to the victim because Iraq is a war zone, so that the victim may invest it for the scammer. This is outright stealing of your money.
34. You are asked to help an orphan, banker, sick widow or widower, official, Zimbabwe farmer, minister, etc. transfer money out of the country – any country – to your account. This is outright stealing of your money.
35. The scammer with a terminal illness wants to make charitable contributions from a vast fortune. They need you to help them with the transfer of the money, but up fees need to be paid to the local government.   This is outright stealing of your money.

Added to this list is the many military scams, disaster relief scams, refugee scam, and business scams that Ghanaian scammers can dream up and this list will just keep growing.

All of these scams are designed to relieve you of your money and/or involve you in their criminal enterprise.  Either way, you will be left holding the bag for any of these crimes as the scammer is insulated and not covered by our laws and cannot be prosecuted by our governments.    American and Western Europeans are generous and always try to help, and the scammers take advantage of our generosity and emotions.

Ghanaian are the most verbally vicious when they are exposed and are not receiving money from their victims.  They then start verbal bullying tactics and blackmail schemes, trying to scare the victim back into their clutches, until the victim is drained of all assets, then they discard them like garbage, never looking back and go on to the next victim they have been grooming.

If anyone on the internet asks you for money, assistance in reshipping, setting up accounts, or sends you money or securities, it is a scam, immediately report it to the FBI, FTC, and SCARS at www.Anyscam.com.

TAGS: SCARS, Guest Editorial, Bernard Vance, Information About Scams, Anti-Scam, Scams, Scammers, Fraudsters, Cybercrime, Crybercriminals, Romance Scams, Scam Victims,

SCARS™ Team
Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc.
A Worldwide Crime Victims Assistance Nonprofit Organization
Visit: www.AgainstScams.org
Contact Us: Contact@AgainstScams.org

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