The day after his 29th birthday in May, Olalekan Jacob Ponle posted a photo on his Instagram standing next to a bright yellow Lamborghini in Dubai.
"Stop making people feel guilty about the wealth you've acquired," he warned, wearing designer jewelry and Gucci from head to toe.
A month later, the Nigerian, who calls himself "mrwoodbery" on Instagram, was arrested by the Dubai police for alleged money laundering and computer fraud.
The most famous of the dozen Africans captured in the dramatic operation was 37-year-old Ramon Olorunwa Abbas, "hushpuppi" or simply "hush", as he was known by his 2.4 million followers on Instagram.
Emirate police say they recovered $ 40 million (£ 32 million) in cash, 13 luxury cars worth $ 6.8 million, 21 computers, 47 smartphones and the addresses of nearly two million victims.
Abbas and Ponle were both extradited to the United States and accused in a Chicago court of conspiring to commit wire fraud and laundering hundreds of millions of dollars from cybercrime.
The two have not yet been asked to defend themselves and are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
"I think there is probably some arrogance when they believe they have been careful to remain anonymous in their online identities, but they live high and neglect themselves on social media," said Glen Donath, a former chief prosecutor in the United States Washington, DC.
It's a spectacular crash for the two Nigerian men who have widely documented their tacky and volatile lifestyle on social media, raising questions about the sources of their wealth.
They unwittingly provided crucial information about their identity and activities for American detectives with their posts on Instagram and Snapchat.
They are accused of impersonating legitimate employees of various US companies in "corporate email compromise" (BEC) schemes and of tricking recipients into linking millions of dollars to their accounts.
On Instagram, hushpuppi claimed to be a real estate developer and to have a category of videos called "Flexing" - social media jargon to show off. But "houses" were actually a code word for bank accounts "used to receive proceeds from a fraudulent regime," investigators say.
"Our value system in Nigeria needs to be verified, especially the emphasis we put on wealth, no matter how you have it," economist Ebuka Emebinah told the BBC in New York.
"It's a culture where people believe that results speak for you. We don't put too much emphasis on the process and it has built up over time."
English Premier League team targeted
In April, Hushpuppi renewed his lease for another year in the exclusive apartments of Palazzo Versace in Dubai with his real name and telephone number.
"Thank you, Lord, for the many blessings of my life. Continue to shame those who wait for me to be ashamed," he subtitled a photo on Instagram of a Rolls Royce only two weeks before being arrested.
"Abbas finances this opulent lifestyle through crime and is one of the leaders of a transnational network that facilitates cyber intrusions, fraudulent schemes (including BEC schemes) and money laundering, targeting victims around the world in schemes designed to steal hundreds of millions of dollars, "the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) said in a sworn statement.
In one case, a foreign financial institution would have lost $ 14.7 million in a cyber theft where the money ran into hushpuppi's bank accounts in multiple countries.
The sworn statement also claimed to have been involved in a plan to steal $ 124 million from an unnamed English Premier League team.
The FBI obtained documents from its Google, iCloud accounts from Apple, Instagram and Snapchat which allegedly contained bank information, passports, communications with conspirators and wire transfer records.
About 90% of corporate email compromise scams come from West Africa, according to research conducted by the American email security company Agari.
"Yahoo guys"
The complaint against Abbas and Ponle describes tactics similar to what the company calls the seller's compromise email tactics in which scammers compromise an email account and study communication between a customer and a supplier.
"The scammer allegedly collected contextual details, observing the legitimate flow of e-mail," says Crane Hassold, Agari's senior director of threat research.
"The bad actor would redirect e-mails to the bad actor's e-mail account, created e-mails to the customer that appeared to be from the seller, indicated that the" seller "had a new bank account, provided" updated "account information banking and money would have gone at that point. "
Ponle, known online as "mrwoodberry", used Mark Kain in email, according to the FBI.
He is accused of tricking a Chicago-based company into sending wire transfers of $ 15.2 million. Companies from Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, New York and California are also said to have been victims.
The trail of cash would disappear after his accomplices, called mule money, converted the money into cryptocurrency bitcoins.
Email scams have become so widespread globally and so deeply linked to Nigeria that scammers have a name in the country: "Yahoo boys".
They attempt to convince a recipient to transfer money to the other side of the world or go "phishing", stealing a user's identity and personal information for fraud.
The FBI warns against the Nigerian letter or "419" fraud; e-mails that promise large sums of money called scams with advance fees. The "Nigerian Prince" trope has become a shortcut to deception.
How a 419 scam works and romantic
- A person can contact you via email, explaining that he needs help transferring money
- He will tell you that political turmoil or a natural disaster make it difficult for him to move
- He will ask you to provide him with your financial details so that he can transfer the money to your account
- This allows him to log in and steal from your account
- Be careful what you post on social media and dating sites as scammers use the details to better understand you and direct you
A Washington, DC lawyer, Moe Adele, finds him frustrating as a Nigerian because he ignores the "systemic failures that have led to brilliant young Nigerians engaged in these scams", at home and abroad.
"They see it as a simple way out in a country that offers them limited options and, in many cases, no options," he says.
"But there are also many brilliant Nigerians who are represented in the world stages from education to pop culture."
How Nigeria suffers
Last month, the U.S. Treasury Department blacklisted six Nigerians from 79 individuals and organizations on its list of the most wanted cybercriminals. He accused them of stealing more than $ 6 million from American citizens through deceptive global threats such as the BEC and romantic fraud.
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Ayò Bánkólé, founder of a Nigerian Bootcamp company, defends international attention on Nigeria alone.
"Many Nigerians are doing fantastic things all over the world, but they don't get as much media mileage as kids doing bad things. It affects all kids doing legitimate things especially in the tech space," he said.
"Many foreign companies do not ship to Nigeria, many payment platforms do not accept payments from us because it has ruined our image."
In its Internet crime report for 2019, the FBI said it had received over 460,000 complaints of suspected cyber fraud, with losses of over $ 3.5 billion reported. More than $ 300 million has been recovered, he said.
However, many online scammers are not caught and even fewer end up in jail.
Donath says that cases are difficult because they occur abroad and tend to be quite sophisticated.
"They take a long time, are document-intensive and in many federal criminal cases, you have a hard time passing a jury through a chronology of relevant facts," said law firm partner Clifford Chance.
If convicted, Abbas and Ponle could be locked up for up to 20 years.
