At a shrine in the borders of Accra, businesswoman and celebrity priestess that is fetish Agradaa casts spells on her clients to assist them to earn money.
Nana Agradaa takes 100 cedis ($26) a session from cafe males to produce them the charged capacity to manipulate their victims.
We view as Nana Agraada invokes her spirits in the front of a idol that is wooden covered in pictures of westerners which were taken to her by cafe men.
She chants, spits schnapps and pours talcum powder on her behalf idols, as she shows certainly one of her many incantations that are popular an associate.
“He brought some people that are white me personally,” she stated.
“The kid wishes them to deliver him some quantity because he has got been asking for cash however they have never compensated the amount of money.
“therefore i give him some detergent to get and make use of, then when he’s utilizing it to bath, he’ll state such a thing for him. which he desires the white woman or even the white guy to accomplish”
Superstition operates deep in Ghana and several believe scammers count on juju, or miracle.
“we hear that there’s some powers that are spiritual they use,” stated Dr Yankson, through the Ghana Police.
“Sometimes i am lured to think therefore, my buddy.”
2:09 Fetish Priestess Nana Agradaa casts a spell on a scammer’s western ‘client’
Cafe boys like Mohamed, Kweiku and Skidoo will be the bottom feeders in a international enterprise which has spread from nearby Nigeria.
“those that enjoy this while the perpetrators — most of these are unemployed,” Abu Issah, acting mind of prosecutions at Ghana’s Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO), told Four Corners.
“But they truly are extremely smart since it takes somebody by having an intellect to take a seat and also fancy getting into this task also to hoodwink some body.”
The FBI reports formidable criminal activity organisations which originated from Nigeria have actually spread to a lot more than 80 nations and generally are making huge amounts of bucks a year from frauds alone.
Relating to EOCO’s Abu Issah, the cafe guys are set victim for the international syndicates which took hold in Ghana.
“the major dudes make huge amount of money,” he stated.
“we now have Nigerian nationals as well as other West nationals that are african come here — and undoubtedly they’ve their Ghanaian collaborators — and so they share a few ideas, which makes it therefore advanced even to locate.
“the top fishes deliver the little guys on an errand to attempt initial tasks for them when they offer them vital link the feedback as to the target they have in touch with, they clamp straight down on it.
“so that they graduate through the little males to the big dudes in city.”
This is the way, in some instances, victims of relationship frauds are exchanged among crooks to be utilized in bigger crimes, including medication trafficking and cash laundering.
The same as in Ghana’s internet cafes, scammers gather online to trade abilities, knowledge and fake identities in a huge black colored market operating on Twitter.
In public places Facebook teams, fraudsters share scripts, called “formats”, to operate their frauds.
You will find day-by-day platforms for each and every scam: one of the hundreds discovered by Four Corners were army formats, unwell mom scripts, lotto platforms, gay sex talk platforms, sugar daddy platforms and “trust and love” scripts.
Scammers advertise Facebook profiles, taken photos of army personnel and photo doctoring abilities for fabricating IDs and emergencies that are even medical.
In key teams on Twitter’s instant texting solution, WhatsApp, we discovered scammers sharing advice on mimicking US accents and female voices.
Within the WhatsApp teams, crooks promoted bank that is australian to launder cash and purchasers agreed to deliver presents to Australian relationship scam victims.
Scamming pays well and for Skidoo, it is a bottom that is brutal: West African fraudsters are using what’s owed for them.
“It may be somehow painful seeing somebody who is of sufficient age to be your mom going right on through that but the important thing still stays, we have to survive,” he stated.
” The white individuals, they came down right here to colonise us, took exactly just exactly what belongs to us.
“They delivered our great-great grandfathers there, mistreated them, addressed them like slaves, they did plenty of injury to them. They have done us bad before so we think it is the right time to back pay them.”
In Kweiku’s flat, we find a novel, Think and Grow deep by Napoleon Hill, for which their objectives are scrawled regarding the inside address:
” Target — desire: i have to get 25,000 cedis $6,690 by the conclusion of November 2019.
“Purpose/goal: 1. purchase a land of my personal.
“2. Lease a shop and work out it a perfume store.
“Help me personally Lord! many thanks Lord!”
Kweiku additionally dreams of becoming an Afrobeats celebrity.
At a outside concert in Accra, a huge selection of young Ghanians have actually gathered to dance, tune in to music and celebration.
Kweiku takes to the level in the front of a crowd that is small perform.
“In two decades, I would like to be a huge musician all over the world, a businessman and use the youth therefore I can make jobs for the youth for the reason that it may be the primary thing this is certainly keeping us straight back,” he stated.
“this is exactly why we have been indulging ourselves in this scamming and all of that.”
For Kweiku, relationship scam victims are genuine stones that are stepping their future.
“Sometimes you will end up conversing with the individual and you will also feel shame for that individual: ‘wow, this individual, she actually is crying and all of that,'” he stated.
“We feel shame, you too, you’ll need cash.”
View meet with the Scammers on Four Corners at 8.30pm on ABC TV and iView tonight.
Reporter: Sean Rubinsztein-Dunlop
Producer: Lesley Robinson
Digital Producer: Brigid Andersen
Digital Design: Georgina Piper
