Yahoo Boys Scams Openly Discussed on Major Social Platforms
"Yahoo Boys" groups still run sexploitation and financial fraud scams on major tech platforms despite attempts to limit their activity
TLDR
“Yahoo Boys” is an umbrella term to describe social engineering schemes originating from West Africa. These often include romance and blackmailing scams.
Yahoo Boys-related social media groups are easy to find and join. These groups often contain messages that discuss scams openly and explicitly.
Our researchers identified multiple instances of Telegram users sharing scripts for other scammers to copy-paste. Similarly, Yahoo-related Telegram groups often share links to mainstream social media platforms and apps such as WhatsApp and Facebook.
Background
“Yahoo Boys” is a term describing scammers involved in various fraud schemes (often originating from Nigeria and other West African countries). The Yahoo Boys name is a nod to an early 2000s email scam involving promises from a “Nigerian prince.” These emails frequently came from accounts hosted by Yahoo (yahoo.com).
Current Yahoo Boys schemes tend not to be technically sophisticated. Instead, they rely on social engineering to deceive victims typically located in English-speaking western countries. These scammers often target their victims over social media or messaging apps.
Common Fraud and Extortion Schemes
One common scheme is known as a romance scam. In this scheme, perpetrators dupe victims into falling in love with a fake profile before manipulating them into sending money (similar to “catfishing”).1 Alternatively, victims may be tricked into becoming money mules, unwittingly helping fraudsters launder money or cash out stolen funds.
According to FBI reports, Yahoo fraudsters are also increasingly conducting financial sextortion campaigns. In these schemes, fraudsters manipulate victims into sharing sensitive — and often nude — images of themselves before blackmailing them with the images.2 Many of the victims of these sextortion campaigns are teenagers, and the campaigns can have fatal consequences. According to a report by the Network Contagion Research Institute, 21 suicides have been identified as linked to sextortion activities.3
Social media pages and messaging groups dedicated to Yahoo-related fraud can be found easily with search terms that include the phrase “yahoo.” Many of these groups operate publicly, allowing anyone to view or join the group without a vetting process.
Analysis
Open Measures researchers and other organizations have identified Yahoo scam groups on Facebook, WhatsApp, TikTok, and Telegram,4 some of the latter of which have tens of thousands of members. Though the platforms above tend to be activity hubs, it is likely that similar Yahoo schemes are currently active in other media environments as well.
“Formats” and Scripts Shared in Yahoo Boys Groups
Many Yahoo Boys groups host open and explicit discussion of criminal schemes, with admins posting free tutorials on how to carry out different types of fraud (often referred to as “formats”).
With a low degree of confidence, Open Measures researchers assessed that admins may be sharing this information openly in order to drive business to paid services (which could include higher-quality tutorials, access to more exclusive groups, profit-splitting opportunities, and so on).
Below is a detailed example of the strategy behind a specific scam (the “celebrity format”):
Within these formats, Yahoo groups also share detailed scripts for messages others can use to deceive potential victims (known as “scripts”). For example, our researchers found one format for deceiving victims into believing they were in a relationship in order to manipulate them into sending nude photos that could later be used to blackmail them. An example script for this format can be seen below:
Discussions of other kinds of financial fraud often take place in these groups as well, sometimes including cryptocurrency.
Based on other cybercriminal activities Open Measures has investigated, the overlap between these groups may be strategic, as certain financial fraud schemes might benefit Yahoo members looking to secure stolen funds from any number of other schemes. More research would be needed to prove these theories, but the fact that many romance scam victims are also used as “money mules” to launder stolen funds could support them.
Links Shared in Yahoo Boys Groups
Our researchers used the Link Counter tool – which provides information on which domains are being shared on various platforms in Open Measures data – to examine Yahoo-related channels that had thousands of followers. To narrow the scope of our investigation, we used the Link Counter’s “Advanced” search feature to target specific Telegram channels from Oct. 1, 2023 to Sept. 30, 2024.
Researchers found that Yahoo-related channels often shared links to traditional social media sites such as Facebook, YouTube, and WhatsApp. For example, in a channel with nearly 14,000 followers and a name which included the emojis of the Nigerian, Ghanaian, and US flags (channelid:1951124643), the top domains shared were:
Telegram (29 links)
WhatsApp (27 links)
Instagram (25 links)
Facebook (7 links)
The data above illustrates that Yahoo Boys groups are still operating successfully on many major tech platforms, despite the fact that these platforms have been trying to control their activity for years. For example, in July 2024, Meta purged over 60,000 accounts from their platforms for Yahoo-related activities.5
Conclusion
Like other financial cybercriminals, the Yahoo Boys have demonstrated their ability to innovate and adapt to new technologies and fraud schemes. Unlike most fraudsters, however, they engage in their activities openly and often without euphemisms, providing word-for-word scripts while advertising other financial crime services as well.
Open Measures researchers identified several Yahoo-related channels on Telegram and added them to our data, but more of these Telegram channels certainly exist; as the analysis of link-sharing above shows, these actors are often active on many different social media and messaging platforms at once.
While Yahoo Boys-related fraud is often unsophisticated from a technological perspective, the impact of these schemes should not be underestimated. Yahoo Boys’ scams have resulted in at least 21 youth suicides, the loss of many millions of dollars, and an immeasurable amount of psychological trauma. As such, Open Measures will continue to monitor these groups.
Tips For Our Research Teams
We encourage our community of researchers to reach out with any information about where Yahoo Boys activity can be found. To assist, partnered users should use our Crawl Request feature, which allows individuals to add sources to collect, or reach out to us directly with any tips.
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Raffile, P., Goldenberg, A., McCann, C., & Finkelstein, J. (2024, January). A digital pandemic: Uncovering the role of “yahoo boys” in the surge of social media-enabled financial sextortion targeting minors. Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI). Here.