At a shrine in the outskirts of Accra, businesswoman and celebrity priestess that is fetish Agradaa casts spells on her clients to assist them to generate income.
Nana Agradaa takes 100 cedis ($26) a session from cafe males to produce them the capacity to manipulate their victims.
We view as Nana Agraada invokes her spirits in the front of a idol that is wooden covered in photos of westerners that have been delivered to her by cafe guys.
She chants, spits schnapps and pours talcum powder on her behalf idols, as she shows certainly one of her most popular incantations with an associate.
“He brought some people that are white me,” she said.
“The child wishes them to deliver him some amount they have not paid the money because he has been asking for money but.
“therefore i give him some detergent to get and employ, when he is deploying it to shower, he’ll state such a thing for him. which he desires the white lady or even the white guy to accomplish”
Superstition operates deep in Ghana and several think scammers depend on juju, or secret.
“I hear that there’s some spiritual abilities that they use,” said Dr Yankson, from the Ghana Police.
“Sometimes i am lured to think so, my pal.”
2:09 Fetish Priestess Nana Agradaa casts a spell for a scammer’s western ‘client’
Cafe boys like Mohamed, Kweiku and Skidoo will be the bottom feeders in an enterprise that is global has spread from nearby Nigeria.
“those that enjoy this due to the fact perpetrators — most of these are unemployed,” Abu Issah, acting mind of prosecutions at Ghana’s Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), told Four Corners.
“But these are typically really smart as it takes some one with an intellect to take a seat and also fancy ways to get into this task and also to hoodwink somebody.”
The FBI reports formidable criminal activity organisations which started in Nigeria have actually spread to a lot more than 80 nations as they are making huge amounts of bucks per year from frauds alone.
In accordance with EOCO’s Abu Issah, the cafe males are prepared prey when it comes to syndicates that are global took hold in Ghana.
“the top dudes make vast amounts,” he said.
“we now have Nigerian nationals as well as other West nationals that are african come here — and absolutely they’ve their Ghanaian collaborators — and additionally they share tips, which makes it therefore advanced even to find.
“the top fishes deliver the little guys on an errand to try initial tasks they give them the feedback as to the victim they’ve got in touch with, they clamp down on them for them and when.
“so that they graduate through the boys that are little the top dudes in the city.”
This is the way, in some instances, victims of relationship scams are exchanged among crooks to be utilized in much bigger crimes, including drug trafficking and money laundering.
Exactly like in Ghana’s internet cafes, scammers gather online to trade abilities, knowledge and fake identities in a huge market that is black on Twitter.
In public areas Facebook teams, fraudsters share scripts, called “formats”, to operate their frauds.
You will find day-by-day platforms for each and every scam: foreign brides on the list of hundreds found by Four Corners were army platforms, unwell mom scripts, lotto platforms, homointercourseual intercourse talk formats, sugar daddy platforms and “trust and love” scripts.
Scammers advertise Facebook pages, taken pictures of armed forces workers and picture doctoring abilities for fabricating IDs and also medical emergencies.
In key teams on Twitter’s instant texting solution, WhatsApp, we discovered scammers sharing recommendations on mimicking US accents and voices that are female.
When you look at the WhatsApp teams, crooks promoted Australian bank reports to launder cash and purchasers provided to send gift suggestions to Australian love scam victims.
Scamming will pay well as well as for Skidoo, it really is a bottom that is brutal: West African fraudsters are using what exactly is owed in their mind.
“It could be somehow painful seeing a person who is of sufficient age to end up being your mom dealing with that nevertheless the main point here nevertheless stays, we have to survive,” he stated.
” The white individuals, they came down right here to colonise us, took just just what belongs to us.
“They delivered our great-great grandfathers here, mistreated them, managed them like slaves, they did lots of injury to them. They will have done us bad before and we also think it is time to back pay them.”
In Kweiku’s flat, we find a novel, Think and Grow deep by Napoleon Hill, in which his objectives are scrawled in the cover that is inside
” Target — desire: i need to get 25,000 cedis $6,690 by the conclusion of November 2019.
“Purpose/goal: 1. purchase a land of personal.
“2. Lease a shop while making it a perfume store.
“Help me personally Lord! many thanks Lord!”
Kweiku additionally dreams of becoming an Afrobeats star.
At a concert that is outdoor Accra, a huge selection of young Ghanians have actually gathered to dance, tune in to music and party.
Kweiku takes concise in the front of the little audience to perform.
“In twenty years, I would like to be a large musician internationally, a businessman and use the youth thus I can make jobs when it comes to youth for the reason that it could be the primary thing this is certainly keeping us straight back,” he stated.
“this is exactly why we have been indulging ourselves in this scamming and all that.”
For Kweiku, love scam victims are genuine stepping rocks to their future.
“Sometimes you will end up conversing with the individual and you may also feel shame for the individual: ‘wow, this individual, she actually is crying and all that,'” he stated.
“We feel shame, you too, you’ll need cash.”
View meet up with the Scammers on Four Corners tonight at 8.30pm on ABC television and iView.
Reporter: Sean Rubinsztein-Dunlop
Producer: Lesley Robinson
Digital Producer: Brigid Andersen
Digital Design: Georgina Piper
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