Book: "Nigerian-style scam", survey of West African "grazers"
Detail of the cover of the book “Nigerian-style scam”, an investigation of West African “grazers” by historian Nahema Hanafi.
© Editions Anacharsis
Text by: Sabine Cessou Follow |
Sabine Cessou Follow
6 min
In “L'arnaque à la nigériane” (Anacharsis editions), historian Nahema Hanafi delves into the world of West African cyber-crooks who operate on the internet, to understand “post-colonial relations” and “social banditry”. Which is played behind these "spam".
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Who has not received
spam
from an alleged terminally ill European cancer patient, promising a large amount of inheritance, on condition that they first pay the notary fees?
This
modus operandi
of the Nigerian cyber crooks, who operated by fax in the 1980s and 1990s, spread with the internet at the turn of the 2000s, throughout West Africa.
The pledge of bequest tactic, or advance fee fraud, is known as “fraud 419”, in reference to the section of the Nigerian penal code that deals with such cases.
It is not the only one which is practiced, far from it, the scams of sentimental type having flourished in recent years, to the point of becoming the most common among Ivorian “grazers”, for example.
Because the 419 fraud does not focus on relationships of seduction, but "
the factory of empathy
", it serves as a common thread to this original investigation, written in the first person singular.
A type of scam that is not African
The dive into the world of "grazers", these cyber-crooks with a powerful imagination, capable of putting themselves in the shoes of a Westerner to extort money in Europe or the United States, is done here with the scientific rigor of the historian.
The survey starts from around fifty emails received by Nahema Hanafi, the author, lecturer in modern and contemporary history at the University of Angers.
She thus recalls, from the first pages, that this type of scam has nothing African about it, since it recalls the “
letters from the Spanish prisoner
” that appeared during the Anglo-Spanish war (1585-1604).
“
Well-off people are contacted by a stranger responsible for putting out of danger the child of a notable detained in a Spanish prison.
Without financial means, he asks for an advance on costs, suggesting the possibility of a gratuity
”.
Likewise, the “
letters from Jerusalem
” emanating from French thieves at the end of the 18th century, depict alleged valets de chambre who asked strangers to go and unearth treasures buried here and there, and to pay fees to be given details of where to dig.
Nigeria was certainly ranked in 2010 by the FBI in third place among countries emitting
fraudulent
spam
, before Ghana (8th) and Cameroon (9th).
However, the global phenomenon of cybercrime has ramifications in West Africa for scams much less sophisticated than
ransomware
(demanding a ransom for unlocking the computer or decrypting personal data) or carding. (illegal use of bank cards), widespread in North America.
Power of writing
The West African scam, she uses "
social engineering
", notes the author, a "
tactic of exploitation of human relationships, based on a manipulation and a psychological grip, which leads the victims to transmit sensitive information or transfer funds
”.
Nahema Hanafi, who is interested in the history of medicine and gender, also works on the powers of the written word.
What the “grazers” experience, to adopt a new posture: “
By composing the mask of a bandit with a big heart, they offer an amended version of a decolonial Robin Hood, combining social, economic and racial.
Their originality is to link the theme of redistribution to that of reparation, inscribing their approach in the centuries-old history of slavery and colonization and of their memory.
In this lies the political significance of the scam
”.
Aesthetics of "runoff"
All without leaving their territory and going through the ordeal of migration, because here "
it is money that migrates
", notes the author.
In her decryption of around fifty spam emails that she herself received, the historian deciphers a narrative that refers to very African realities.
By putting themselves in the shoes of dying French women suffering from cancer, but who are bleeding to seek treatment where they live, most often in West Africa, grazers give an idea of an evil that is eating away at their own societies. : the inability to access healthcare.
“
Nigerian-style scams root French expatriates in their host country (most often in West Africa, editor's note), as grazers and their relatives are themselves, for lack of visas and means to access to the best care
”.
By turning their own weapons against grazers, and following them on their Facebook accounts, the author spied on them to better analyze them.
She returns to the "
bara
", or the force of control which calls upon occult forces, she sifts the ambitions and the springs of crime - "to
fight misery even in agony
", and is interested in grazer values.
In particular, it notes, in them, an "
aesthetic of runoff
": the "
grazers
" stage themselves with banknotes stuck to their mouths, in a sort of "
poetics of ostentation which says, under the fires of glory and brilliance of watches, all the destitution that came before
”.
By examining their world, which has taken on the scale of a real social phenomenon in Côte d'Ivoire or Benin, the author crosses the mirror to examine the motivations of young men, operating in cyber- cafes.
“
Death, rejected by virile maxims, is ultimately omnipresent in their remarks, social death in particular, which threatens young men who will not succeed in becoming heads of families, to reign over theirs.
So they ignite, they burn with ostentation, they also squander
”.
A fascinating survey, which also says a lot about the state of West African societies.
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