Cybercriminals (Yahoo Boys) and Society Hustle Kingdoms, Occult Economies, and the Colonial Politics of Digital Fraud

Introduction and Roadmap PART I: FRAMING THE TERRAIN 1. Geographies of Cybercrime: Postcolonial Inequalities and the Spatial Production of Cybercriminals 2. The Tripartite Cybercrime Framework and the Particularities of Cybercrime in Nigeria 3. From Student Activism to Global Fraud: The Evolution of Nigerian Confraternities and Their Role in Cybercrime PART II: INSTITUTIONS AND INFRASTRUCTURES OF CYBERCRIMINAL FORMATION 4. Hustle Kingdoms as Structural Strain? Alternative Institutions of Deviant Learning in Anglophone West Africa 5. Beyond Voluntary Deviance: Spiritual Coercion and the Victim Offender Overlap in Hustle Kingdoms 6. Do Mothers' Hands Both Bless and Bind? An Ethnographic Account of Yahoo Boys' Mothers' Associations (AYBM) 7. Is the Spirit World the Base of the Superstructure? Empirical Evidence for Inverting Orthodox Marxism in Nigerian Occult Economies PART III: OFFENCES, SCRIPTS, AND NETWORKED OPERATIONS 8. Romance in Ruins and the Hustler’s Gospel of Love and Lies 9. United States v. Olugbenga Lawal: Romance Fraud, Business Email Compromise, and Transnational Money Laundering 10. Gendered Pathways to Deviance? Comparing Nigerian Male Online Fraudsters (Yahoo Boys) and Female Trafficked Sex Workers (Ashawo) PART IV: CULTURAL GRAMMARS AND REGIONAL VARIANTS 11. Afrobeats and the Cultural Politics of Online Fraud (2007 to 2025) 12. Codes of Retaliation and Anti-Colonial Discourses in Digital Fraud: Ghana, Nigeria, and Jamaica 13. A Comparative Analysis of Internet Fraudsters: Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, and Côte d'Ivoire PART V: GLOBAL SYNTHESIS 14. A Comparative Sociology of Fraud Factories and Cybercrime Academies: Southeast Asia and West Africa PART VI: CONCLUSION 15. Conclusion

Biography

Suleman Lazarus is a Research Associate at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa, and the developer of the Tripartite Cybercrime Framework. He has published widely in journals including Deviant Behavior, Critical Research on Religion, and Journal of Human Trafficking. His research explores human trafficking, online fraud, deception, and victimisation..

"An excellent, theoretically sophisticated, highly original, and sensitively researched analysis of cybercrime. It manages to synthesise apparently contradictory elements like Marxist political economy with complex cultural appreciation, and understanding perpetrators with sympathy for the pain of victims. A major contribution to theoretical criminology and policy concerns."
Robert Reiner, Emeritus Professor of Criminology, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), UK

"Suleman Lazarus offers a sharp and original account of cyber-enabled fraud in West Africa by placing digital deception within the social worlds that produce it. Refusing familiar caricatures of the Yahoo Boy as merely a criminal deviant, this book shows how fraud emerges through blocked mobility, postcolonial inequality, spiritual economies, kinship networks, and the cultural politics of hustle and aspiration. Drawing on fieldwork, court records, scam scripts, ritual practice, and popular music, it recasts online fraud as a historically grounded social formation rather than a purely technical offence. Conceptually ambitious and empirically rich, this is an important intervention in criminology, African studies, anthropology, and digital culture, and one that forces readers to confront the unequal worlds in which digital crime becomes imaginable, intelligible, and ordinary."
Jovan Scott Lewis, Professor of Geography, Haas Distinguished Chair in Economic Disparities, University of California, Berkeley

"In an era when many scams targeting the Global North originate in West Africa, this book cuts through speculation to deliver the most rigorous and illuminating assessment available. Supported by unparalleled ethnographic research, it is the definitive work on the people, practices, and structures that shape this illicit economy."
Mark Button, Professor, Co-Director of the Centre for Cybercrime and Economic Crime, University of Portsmouth, UK 

"Cybercriminals (Yahoo Boys) and Society is an artfully crafted look into the world of the Yahoo Boys and the Hustle Kingdoms they inhabit. Drawing on rigorous, methodologically sound research, Suleman Lazarus goes beyond simplistic caricatures to provide a theoretically rich and deeply contextualised account of the social conditions that give rise to these forms of cybercrime. This is essential reading for anyone with a serious interest in cybercrime." 
Heith Copes, Distinguished Professor of Criminal Justice, The University of Alabama at Birmingham

"This book offers a much-needed in-depth sociological analysis of West African cybercrime and beyond, grounded in conviction records, ethnographic depth, and comparative insight. Essential reading for anyone seeking a sociocultural account of digital deviance that replaces cultural-pathology caricatures with rigorous explanation."
Eric Rutger Leukfeldt, Professor, Leiden University; Senior Researcher, Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement; Director, Centre of Expertise Cybersecurity, The Hague University of Applied Sciences

"The academic literature on Cybercrime has grown in volume over the years, yet its focus is still very ‘North’ of the Global North-South digital divide. Suleman Lazarus adds to the literature with a very nuanced and informative analysis of digital fraud and offending in the ‘South’ of the divide'."
David S. Wall, Profsssor, Centre for Criminal Justice Studies, School of Law, University of Leeds

"This book provides a rare and valuable glimpse behind the curtain of cyber fraud and the offenders who operate within it. Drawing on rich ethnographic data, it situates offending behaviours within the wider social, economic, and cultural context of Nigeria. The evidence and insights in this book make a vital contribution to academic knowledge of modern-day fraud, and it is essential reading for practitioners seeking to deepen their understanding and design effective national and international policies to address cyber fraud."
Dr Michael Skidmore, Head of Serious Crime Research, The Police Foundation

"This work provides critical insights into the cultural and social contexts that drive cybercrimes in Nigeria and West Africa."
Thomas J. Holt, Professor, Director of the Center for Cybercrime Investigation and Training, School of Criminal Justice, Michigan State University

"Cybercriminals (Yahoo Boys) and Society: Hustle Kingdoms, Occult Economies, and the Colonial Politics of Digital Fraud gives new insights into the rise of scams in West Africa. Things are not always as simple as the Nigerian Prince story. Suleman Lazarus gives a detailed insight into the different sources of scams and how they came to be. Worthy to read!"
Jorij Abraham, Managing Director, Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA)