Erin West and Paul Raffile stepped out of their van about 45 minutes outside Lagos, Nigeria, and walked down a muddy hill.
asserted
West → step → hill
At the bottom, they entered a field with houses made of corrugated steel and cardboard.
asserted
they → enter → steel
Raffile kept falling into the mud.
asserted
Raffile → keep → mud
After walking about a quarter of a mile, the pair came to a hut, six feet high on stilts, and climbed up a ladder.
asserted
pair → walk → ladder
The baba lao was going to do a ritual designed to ensure a Nigerian scammer would make more money in his blackmailing or manipulation of an overseas victim, maybe back in the United States.
asserted
scammer → go → States
A scammer who accompanied West and Raffile had a photo of the victim he was trying to get money from, and the identity he had impersonated to do so.
asserted
he → accompany → money
The baba lao then fused these two souls together to bring more fortune to the scammer, Raffile recalled.
asserted
Raffile → fuse → scammer
For two and a half hours, the baba lao jumped between grinding herbs, creating talismans, sacrificing an animal.
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lao → jump → animal
Locals gathered outside the hut.
asserted
Locals → gather → hut
West and Raffile are scam experts: West is the founder of Operation Shamrock, an organization that aims to disrupt scam operations, and Raffile is a long time cybercrime researcher, who focuses especially on sextortion.
asserted
who → aim → sextortion
This is where scammers, like those in Nigeria, will assume the identity of a young person, approach teenagers in the U.S. on apps like Instagram, have them record explicit videos, then pull the mask away and threaten to release the videos to the victim’s friends and family unless they pay up.
asserted
they → assume → friends
Sextortion is common across U.S. social media platforms; at least dozens of young boys have taken their own lives after being targeted.
asserted
dozens → take → lives
The pair hatched a plan to go to Nigeria to see if they could actually track down a scammer.
uncertain
they → hatch → scammer
The trip provided rare insight into how some scammers live and how brazenly many of them flaunt their scams.
asserted
many → provide → scams
Sextortion is “targeting youth.
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Sextortion → target → youth
It's surging,” Raffile said.
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Raffile → surge → ?
“I wonder, can we hatch a plan where we put ourselves out there as a target, create our own fake account, get scammed by these criminals, and then trace the criminal back to their home turf?”
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we → wonder → turf
They made an Instagram and Snapchat account pretending to be a young person.
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They → make → account
Within a couple of days, they started receiving suspicious direct messages.
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they → start → messages
West said she was “flabagasted” at how quickly the messages came in.
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messages → say → ?
The scammers were pretending to be young women, often using photos stolen from OnlyFans models.
asserted
scammers → pretend → models
As the chat progressed and the scammers demanded money, the pair said they could only pay in Bitcoin, and sent a link to a website where the scammer could allegedly claim their payment.
uncertain
scammer → progress → payment
The site was actually grabbing the scammers’ IP addresses.
asserted
site → grab → addresses
It showed the scammers were in Lagos, Nigeria.
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scammers → show → Lagos
With not much to go on just yet, the pair got on a flight to Nigeria.
asserted
pair → go → Nigeria
Once they landed, they had around six days to find a scammer.
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they → land → scammer
It would not be financially viable to sit around in Lagos forever.
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It → sit → Lagos
The pair deployed the IP address grabbing website again, but this time one of the scammers granted the tool more permissions in his browser.
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one → deploy → browser
The tool was also designed to, if possible, get their exact location, or turn on its camera and see their face.
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tool → design → face
This time, it worked.
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it → work → ?
They had a scammer’s face.
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They → have → face
At one point, another scammer asked the pair to move from Instagram, where the conversation initially happened, over to WhatsApp, which revealed the scammer’s phone number.
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which → ask → number
The pair’s fixer put that number into TrueCaller— an app that harvests peoples’ phone contact lists and makes them searchable, essentially — which revealed the name Big Dollar.
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which → put → name
West also provided the number to some contacts who investigated it.
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who → provide → it
They worked with another expert too who was able to dig up more information and find the scammer’s real name.
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who → work → name
They then found other social media profiles belonging to Big Dollar, including a TikTok account that had posted blackmail messages.
asserted
that → find → messages
The pair were given GPS coordinates of where this scammer might be.
uncertain
scammer → give → coordinates
They drove to Big Dollar’s village, and ultimately he refused to meet the pair.
asserted
he → drive → pair
West told Big Dollar on the phone, we know who you are, we know where you live, and the next step is we’re going to give this information to the FBI.
asserted
we → tell → FBI
Around this time, they saw Big Dollar’s social media accounts go dark.
asserted
accounts → see → time
…and 1 more, not listed.
The Aporia
