Carlos Barragan

I was very curious.

And, you know, there were stories about the Nigerian prince back in the 90s, but I felt like much of it was a stereotype.

And I wanted to understand who these people were.

And I was just curious, you know, I wanted to know their real motives and like also how they do it, how they convince people, because it's really hard to convince someone to send you money.

if you've never seen them in real life.

But also, I was very curious about what they thought about our own loneliness.

No, actually, I didn't.

I think I would have made a Netflix documentary if I had.

But what I found was something way bigger.

Suddenly, I found that there were thousands of young men who were unemployed and struggling.

And because they're older friends, older brothers, they were into scams.

They just did what these people were doing.

And they learned from the street.

techniques to scam both women and men in the West.

Yes, it's important to note, though, that it's completely disorganized.

So, for example, many people in the West believe that it's kind of like a criminal syndicate and it's all sophisticated.

But when you get to Lagos, when you get to the neighborhood I describe in the book where I follow four scammers, you see that these are young teenagers.

They are teenagers who are like completely on their own because to scam someone like my mom, you just need a phone from there.

And they don't have bosses.

They are on their own.