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‘HUSTLE KINGDOM’
Evil world of Yahoo Boys sextortion gang who drive Brits to suicide… and then flaunt £1k trainers from ill-gotten gains
One devastated mum says 'those evil criminals killed our son'
THEY revel in lives of luxury with designer clothes, flash cars and expensive jewellery.
Flashing piles of cash and showing off Mercedes motors and £1000 Balenciaga trainers, these are the men proud to call themselves ‘Yahoo Boys’ - scammers who have conned thousands of young Brits through sextortion.
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Showing off the spoils of their crimes while working together in so-called 'Hustle Kingdoms' - upmarket hotel rooms - the tricksters have no shame.
But this is a criminal network with blood on its hands.
At least three UK teenagers have committed suicide after being threatened through sextortion - and now Nigerian based tricksters are using artificial intelligence to improve their sick methods.
Meta last month cracked down on the twisted gangs who lure victims into sending explicit images before blackmailing them for cash.
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More than 63,000 Yahoo Boy accounts have been shut down on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
Yet The Sun was easily able to find a scammer offering to teach people his evil methods for cash on Facebook.
When we contacted him, he offered to reveal his techniques for just under £800.
We can today also reveal the ‘scripts’ used by the conmen as experts warn of an epidemic of online sexual blackmail among young Britons.
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Dan Sexton, chief technology officer at the, said: “This is a public health epidemic.
“It’s a damning indictment of online safety that it is easy enough and profitable enough to target children and young people online. It appears to be a legitimate business strategy by criminals.”
Watch as Big Brother star Marisha Wallace fights back tears as she reveals she was scammed out of THOUSANDS
Figures from the Foundation reveal that 176 youngsters were targeted last year - up from 21 cases in 2022.
Boys are the main targets and sixty percent of reports involved 16 and 17-year-olds.
Experts believe the real figure could be far more because the shame felt by victims will prevent them reporting the crime.
The men behind the shake-downs shamelessly flaunt their wealth as they operate on an industrial scale - mainly out of the Philippines, Morocco and the Ivory Coast - but their ruthless approach to money-making has led to the deaths of at least three British teens.
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Police in Scotland are believed to be working with Nigerian cops after the suicide of 16-year-old Murray Dowey in December last year.
The teenager, of Dunblane, Perthshire, was tricked into sending an intimate image of himself to someone he thought was a young woman. Then the demands for cash started.
Murray’s devastated mum Ros told ITV she was haunted by "the panic and terror he must have been in for however long this went on, whether it was minutes or hours.
“I’m devastated for him, that he was just obviously in such a state that he thought taking his life was the only thing he could do.
“I just think they’re evil… those criminals killed our son.”
Two years ago, 16-year-old Dinal De Alwis took his own life after being sent two naked pictures of himself by a ruthless extortioner demanding £100 on Snapchat.
His dad Kaushallya, of Croydon, London, described Dinal as "gifted and gentle" and “the most caring son.”
In 2013, Daniel Perry, 17, of Dunfermline, Fife, jumped from the Forth Road Bridge after sharing compromising Skype messages with someone he thought was an American girl.
After revealing his real identity, Daniel’s blackmailer wrote: “I will make you suffer. Pay up or you’d be better off dead.”
Shocking sub-culture
Despite removing thousands of posts and images linked to the Yahoo Boys we can reveal that Meta is losing the battle against the gangs.
While Facebook warned that the name could be linked to fraudulent activity, we were able to find dozens of accounts from people calling themselves Yahoo boys - and offering to train up poverty-stricken Nigerians in their ‘trade’.
Most were based on the Ivory coast and gave out WhatsApp numbers. We contacted one who promised to teach us ‘Yahoo’ for £779.
The Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), which monitors emerging online threats, said cases involving kids are “accelerating at an alarming rate” as gangs share pre-prepared scripts and tips on sites like Snapchat, Instagram and Wizz.
They have no shame. They show off their fancy cars and designer clothes on social media in what they call ‘hustle kingdoms’ which are mansions or fancy hotel rooms in Nigeria
NCRI director of intelligence Alex Godenberg
In a far-reaching report, it said Nigerian-based groups were responsible for at least 21 deaths across Europe and America after blackmailing vulnerable teens.
It reads: “Virtually all of the financial sextortion targeting minors today is directly linked to a distributed West African cybercriminal group called the Yahoo boys.
“Their subculture has become part of the Nigerian internet landscape. These individuals are known for their lavish lifestyles fueled by ill-gotten gains.
“Their subculture is often associated with flaunting wealth, displaying expensive items like cars, designer clothes and jewellery on social media to showcase their success.”
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One of Instagram’s biggest fraudsters started life as a Yahoo Boy - so-called because the tricksters used Yahoo emails to con people in the 90s.
Ramon Abbas, who called himself Ray Hushpuppi, flaunted his high-end lifestyle complete with private jets, ultra-expensive cars and luxury clothes and watches after a series of cyberheists that saw him pocket millions.
The Nigerian influencer, who had 2.4million followers, was jailed for 11 years in Los Angeles in 2022.
I have your nudes and will wreck your life
Yahoo boy scammer
The NCRI shared with The Sun AI images of a young girl used to extort cash from youngsters - as well as a ‘how to’ guide being used by gangs to extort cash.
The most popular guides are readily available on TikTok, according to the experts.
It lures young teens in with innocent questions before asking if they like playing ‘sexy games’.
Yahoo Boys are then instructed on the chilling way to blackmail victims by telling them: “I have your nudes and everything needed to ruin your life.
“I have a screenshot of your followers and tags and those that commented on your post.
“I can send it to your friends and make it go viral…am going to make sure to humiliate you…send me the money now and I’ll delete your s*** off my phone.”
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NCRI director of intelligence Alex Goldenberg told The Sun how fraudsters flood high school and sports club social media accounts in the hope of gaining followers - making them look more genuine to their victim.
He said: “It’s a ploy to give themselves a veneer of respectability.
“The Yahoo Boys refer to their victims as clients. It is very much a business to them and they want to recruit other young men to do the same.
“Young teenagers who fall for the scam are very often re-victimised because the criminal will pose as a cyber investigator, asking for gift cards to get rid of images.
“They have no shame. They show off their fancy cars and designer clothes on social media in what they call ‘hustle kingdoms’ which are mansions or fancy hotel rooms in Nigeria.”
He said that poverty in Nigeria meant the Yahoo Boys have been “glorified and glamorised”. There are even songs which name check the gangs.
Thousands scammed
As the gangs ramp up their operations to target youngsters, there’s also been a rise in the number of over 18s being hit .
Statistics from The Revenge Porn Helpline doubled last year reaching nearly 19,000 but almost a third were cases of sextortion.
Helpline practitioner Georgia Street said some victims were paying over £10,000 to silence their manipulator.
She said: “People can be scared for their reputation and their relationships and various different things, so they can get really distressed and panicked and people feel sort of ashamed of what’s happened.
“That’s why we really try to reassure people that they’ve not done anything wrong. They are the victims of a crime. The blackmailers want them to feel very ashamed so that they will pay money.”
Both the Internet Watch Foundation and work to block illegal images appearing online.
Dan Sexton said: “There should be no shaming of victims. It’s not their fault that someone is threatening to share their imagery.
“There is no one thing that’s going to solve the problem. If the industry is refusing to block or prevent the distribution of content we have to look at everything that’s going to help. So educating children, educating parents, encouraging good conversations, good technical interventions to prevent it appearing and also action from police.”
Danger warning
The Children's Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza said tech giants are still protecting profits rather than children online.
She called for them to be slapped with tougher rules if they fail to protect our kids.
Writing for The Sun in July, Dame Rachel demanded companies consult with children before rolling out potentially damaging features on platforms - like AI chatbots - to gauge possible abuse.
She said children are best placed to advise on the likely harms of new technology and warned “we ignore them at our peril”.
She said; “We can’t allow platforms to adopt a ‘wait and see’ approach to emerging technology like chatbots, or AI that creates ‘deepfake’ images.
“How many times are we going to let children be the victims of tech companies’ inability to put protection before profits?”
Declaring kids “digital pioneers”, Dame Rachel added: “Children’s voices deserve to be heard. They are on the front line when it comes to social media. Their authentic experiences bring huge value to the debate.”
A spokesperson for Meta, which runs Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, said it would probe the accounts uncovered by The Sun.
They said: "Purposefully exploiting others for money is against our policies and we are investigating the accounts brought to our attention.
"Scammers use every platform available to them to defraud people and constantly adapt to avoid getting caught.
"We continue to invest in technology and cooperate with law enforcement so they can prosecute scammers.
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"We also actively share tips on how people can protect themselves, their accounts and avoid scams."
Have you been a victim of a romance scammers or AI tricksters? Email [email protected]
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