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CHAPTER 16 A “Tribe” Migrates Crime to Cyberspace: Nigerian Igbos in 419 E-Mail Scams

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Electronic Tribes
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N igerian e-mail scams, also known as Advance Fee Fraud or “4 19 ” 1 scams in reference to the Southern Nigeria Criminal Code 2 that criminalizes the impersonation of government of-fi cials for pecuniary gratifi cation,3 have been pervading cyberspace since the late 1990s. They have become so ubiquitous that trying to escape from them has now become almost as diffi cult as trying to hide from daylight: You can do it only with an effort so strenuous it reaches the point of absurdity. The scams inundate mailboxes of millions of e-mail account holders all over the world with such persistence and relentless-ness that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission characterized them as having assumed “epidemic proportions.” 4 The U.S. Secret Service, a major government body charged with the responsibility to combat this cybercrime, also described them as “a Mount Everest of fraud.” 5 And the Washington, D.C.–based National Consumer League ranked them as the second-biggest consumer come-on on the Internet, outrivaled only by pitches for “herbal Viagra.” 6According to the 2001 report of the Internet Fraud Complaint Center,7 419 e-mail scams accounted for 15.5 percent of all offi cially re-ported online fraud complaints in the United States.8 What, then, is this so-called Nigerian e-mail scam? Perhaps the best operational defi nition that encapsulates its robustly variegated dimensions is the one provided by the National White Collar Crime Center:The Nigerian Letter Scam is defi ned as a correspondence outlining an opportunity to receive non-existent government funds from alleged dignitaries that is designed to collect advance fees from the victims. This sometimes requires payoff money to bribe government offi cials. CHAPTER 16A “Tribe” Migrates Crime to Cyberspace: Nigerian Igbos in 419 E-Mail Scamsfarooq a. kperogi and sandra c. duhéT4636.indb269T4636.indb 2694/22/086:43:00AM4/22/08 6:43:00 AM
© 2021 University of Texas Press

N igerian e-mail scams, also known as Advance Fee Fraud or “4 19 ” 1 scams in reference to the Southern Nigeria Criminal Code 2 that criminalizes the impersonation of government of-fi cials for pecuniary gratifi cation,3 have been pervading cyberspace since the late 1990s. They have become so ubiquitous that trying to escape from them has now become almost as diffi cult as trying to hide from daylight: You can do it only with an effort so strenuous it reaches the point of absurdity. The scams inundate mailboxes of millions of e-mail account holders all over the world with such persistence and relentless-ness that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission characterized them as having assumed “epidemic proportions.” 4 The U.S. Secret Service, a major government body charged with the responsibility to combat this cybercrime, also described them as “a Mount Everest of fraud.” 5 And the Washington, D.C.–based National Consumer League ranked them as the second-biggest consumer come-on on the Internet, outrivaled only by pitches for “herbal Viagra.” 6According to the 2001 report of the Internet Fraud Complaint Center,7 419 e-mail scams accounted for 15.5 percent of all offi cially re-ported online fraud complaints in the United States.8 What, then, is this so-called Nigerian e-mail scam? Perhaps the best operational defi nition that encapsulates its robustly variegated dimensions is the one provided by the National White Collar Crime Center:The Nigerian Letter Scam is defi ned as a correspondence outlining an opportunity to receive non-existent government funds from alleged dignitaries that is designed to collect advance fees from the victims. This sometimes requires payoff money to bribe government offi cials. CHAPTER 16A “Tribe” Migrates Crime to Cyberspace: Nigerian Igbos in 419 E-Mail Scamsfarooq a. kperogi and sandra c. duhéT4636.indb269T4636.indb 2694/22/086:43:00AM4/22/08 6:43:00 AM
© 2021 University of Texas Press

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. Contents v
  3. Foreword vii
  4. Acknowledgments xiii
  5. INTRODUCTION Where Is the Shaman? 1
  6. PART I CONCEPTUALIZING ELECTRONIC TRIBES
  7. CHAPTER 1 “A Tribe by Any Other Name . . .” 11
  8. CHAPTER 2 Mimetic Kinship: Theorizing Online “Tribalism” 21
  9. CHAPTER 3 Electronic Tribes (E-Tribes): Some Theoretical Perspectives and Implications 36
  10. CHAPTER 4 Revisiting the Impact of Tribalism on Civil Society: An Investigation of the Potential Benefits of Membership in an E-Tribe on Public Discourse 58
  11. PART II SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF ELECTRONIC TRIBALISM
  12. CHAPTER 5 Theorizing the E-Tribe on MySpace.com 79
  13. CHAPTER 6 Don’t Date, Craftsterbate: Dialogue and Resistance on craftster.org 96
  14. CHAPTER 7 Guild Life in the World of Warcraft: Online Gaming Tribalism 110
  15. CHAPTER 8 At the Electronic Evergreen: A Computer-Mediated Ethnography of Tribalism in a Newsgroup from Montserrat and Afar 124
  16. PART III EMERGING ELECTRONIC TRIBAL CULTURES
  17. CHAPTER 9 “Like a neighborhood of sisters”: Can Culture Be Formed Electronically? 143
  18. CHAPTER 10 Gerald M. Phillips as Electronic Tribal Chief: Socioforming Cyberspace 159
  19. CHAPTER 11 Digital Dreamtime, Sonic Talismans: Music Downloading and the Tribal Landscape 177
  20. CHAPTER 12 Magic, Myth, and Mayhem: Tribalization in the Digital Age 191
  21. PART IV CYBERCRIME AND COUNTERCULTURE AMONG ELECTRONIC TRIBES
  22. CHAPTER 13 Mundanes at the Gate . . . and Perverts Within: Managing Internal and External Threats to Community Online 207
  23. CHAPTER 14 Brotherhood of Blood: Aryan Tribalism and Skinhead Cybercrews 229
  24. CHAPTER 15 Radical Tribes at Warre: Primitivists on the Net 251
  25. CHAPTER 16 A “Tribe” Migrates Crime to Cyberspace: Nigerian Igbos in 419 E-Mail Scams 269
  26. About the Contributors 289
  27. Index 295
Readers are also interested in:
https://doi.org/10.7560/717732-019

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. Contents v
  3. Foreword vii
  4. Acknowledgments xiii
  5. INTRODUCTION Where Is the Shaman? 1
  6. PART I CONCEPTUALIZING ELECTRONIC TRIBES
  7. CHAPTER 1 “A Tribe by Any Other Name . . .” 11
  8. CHAPTER 2 Mimetic Kinship: Theorizing Online “Tribalism” 21
  9. CHAPTER 3 Electronic Tribes (E-Tribes): Some Theoretical Perspectives and Implications 36
  10. CHAPTER 4 Revisiting the Impact of Tribalism on Civil Society: An Investigation of the Potential Benefits of Membership in an E-Tribe on Public Discourse 58
  11. PART II SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF ELECTRONIC TRIBALISM
  12. CHAPTER 5 Theorizing the E-Tribe on MySpace.com 79
  13. CHAPTER 6 Don’t Date, Craftsterbate: Dialogue and Resistance on craftster.org 96
  14. CHAPTER 7 Guild Life in the World of Warcraft: Online Gaming Tribalism 110
  15. CHAPTER 8 At the Electronic Evergreen: A Computer-Mediated Ethnography of Tribalism in a Newsgroup from Montserrat and Afar 124
  16. PART III EMERGING ELECTRONIC TRIBAL CULTURES
  17. CHAPTER 9 “Like a neighborhood of sisters”: Can Culture Be Formed Electronically? 143
  18. CHAPTER 10 Gerald M. Phillips as Electronic Tribal Chief: Socioforming Cyberspace 159
  19. CHAPTER 11 Digital Dreamtime, Sonic Talismans: Music Downloading and the Tribal Landscape 177
  20. CHAPTER 12 Magic, Myth, and Mayhem: Tribalization in the Digital Age 191
  21. PART IV CYBERCRIME AND COUNTERCULTURE AMONG ELECTRONIC TRIBES
  22. CHAPTER 13 Mundanes at the Gate . . . and Perverts Within: Managing Internal and External Threats to Community Online 207
  23. CHAPTER 14 Brotherhood of Blood: Aryan Tribalism and Skinhead Cybercrews 229
  24. CHAPTER 15 Radical Tribes at Warre: Primitivists on the Net 251
  25. CHAPTER 16 A “Tribe” Migrates Crime to Cyberspace: Nigerian Igbos in 419 E-Mail Scams 269
  26. About the Contributors 289
  27. Index 295
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