Young Scammers Upgrade from “Yahoo Boys” to “AI Boys” in Digital Romance Fraud Shift

Misused technology

Your eyes are immediately drawn to her voluptuous chest and deep cleavage. This blonde beauty, with striking narrow yet wide-open eyes, is described by Nigerian man Jason (pseudonym, 20) as “an ordinary person picked from the internet,” while he operates his smartphone with practiced ease. It is image processing using the generative AI “Grok.” A few minutes later, the blonde woman begins to move and starts speaking in a charming pose.

“Hello! How are you doing?”

She then flashes a seductive smile and lightly sticks out her tongue, as if teasing her target.

Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city. In a room of an apartment in this city, which is home to one of the world’s largest water slums, Jason begins speaking calmly.

“Since around last year, I’ve been sending AI-generated videos to foreigners I’m chatting with in dating scams (meaning romance scams in Nigeria). Since introducing AI, the success rate has increased. Dramatically.”

Romance scams are a type of fraud in which perpetrators impersonate others and, through social media or dating apps, make targets fall in love with them and then steal money. Cases have been reported worldwide. According to Japan’s National Police Agency, in 2025 there were 5,604 cases in Japan, with total losses rising 38% year-on-year to 55.2 billion yen.

In Nigeria, many young people like Jason engage in cybercrime such as romance scams, and locally they were called “Yahoo Boys,” a name derived from their past use of Yahoo Mail in fraud.

Until two or three years ago, romance scams mainly involved impersonating others using photos taken from the internet. However, this made it difficult to respond instantly to requests from targets such as “send a video” or “let’s talk on the phone,” and they were sometimes exposed as fake.

However, with the introduction of AI, image and video editing—and even generation—became possible, making the methods more sophisticated. Photos of celebrities such as actors and musicians are sometimes used as source material for fake identities. With AI, they have evolved from Yahoo Boys into “AI Boys.” The fact that crimes can now be carried out using only a smartphone has further accelerated abuse.

The method is as follows:

They purchase abandoned Facebook or Instagram accounts that have been hacked and left unused, from the dark web, and impersonate the owner to contact foreign users at random.

If they get a response, they continue messaging via DM, and once they build intimacy, they fabricate an emergency requiring money—such as a family illness or business failure—and request transfers. In some cases, they also encourage investment in cryptocurrencies.

During these exchanges, they send videos like the one described at the beginning to gain the target’s trust.

[Read the second part here] One smartphone with no opportunity for conscience to intervene: young people behind international romance scams

From “FRIDAY”, April 10, 2026 issue