Excerpt from 'The Yahoo Boys': Inside the Life of a Nigerian Romance Scammer Who Posed as a WWE Star
By
Carlos Barragán
Pure flour-power. Hearty enough to carry you through lunch.
Summary
This excerpt from WIRED Book Club's pick "The Yahoo Boys" by Carlos Barragán follows Chibuike, a Nigerian romance scammer who posed as WWE superstar Roman Reigns to defraud victims. The passage traces his journey from a struggling dancer in Lagos to a successful scammer, showing how he learned the trade from a mentor named Oga, built a fake persona using social media, and eventually made significant money through deception. The book provides an immersive, shoe-leather journalism account of the lives of young Nigerian scammers, exploring the desperation, creativity, and moral ambiguity behind internet romance fraud.
Key quotes
· 4 pulledChibuike spent most nights dancing. He loved Afrobeats, breakdancing, and hip-hop, always impressing everyone with his backflips.
He was a Yahoo Boy—a Nigerian internet scammer—and he had found a lucrative niche: posing as Roman Reigns, a WWE superstar, to trick women into sending him money.
The account he brings back is a funny, sad, enraging read about how the internet can fuel heartbreak.
Barragán took an old-school shoe-leather approach to a very online subject, flying to Lagos to embed himself with a group of young, desperate grifters.
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