{"product_id":"the-yahoo-boys-love-deception-and-the-real-lives-of-nigerias-romance-scammers","title":"The Yahoo Boys: Love, Deception, and the Real Lives of Nigeria's Romance Scammers","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003eA\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold a-text-italic\"\u003eNew York Times\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003eMost Anticipated Nonfiction Book of 2026\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003eA\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold a-text-italic\"\u003ePeople\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003eBest Book of June | A\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold a-text-italic\"\u003eUSA Today\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003eMost Anticipated Summer Read\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003e\"What [Barragán has] produced feels miraculous: journalism that is simultaneously funny, devastating, wildly intimate, and righteous without veering into moralism.\" ―Kate Knibbs,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold a-text-italic\"\u003eWired\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003e(Book Club Pick)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003e\"I have found few books lately as immediately compelling as Barragán's, and as a reader, I could not put it down . . .\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold a-text-italic\"\u003eThe Yahoo Boys\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eis a tour-de-force.\" ―Jon Lee Anderson\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"a-text-bold\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn astonishing work of immersion journalism about four young romance scammers in Lagos, Nigeria, exploring how and why they scam, and the moral dilemmas they face\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhen his mother started emailing with a handsome American soldier who promised to send gold bars to her Madrid apartment, the journalist Carlos Barragán came face to face with the human toll of online romance fraud. After tracing the emails to an IP address in Nigeria, he set off on a journey to Lagos to find his mother’s scammer, where he stumbled on a much bigger story. There, in a crowded and impoverished neighborhood in the midst of Africa’s largest city, he encountered thousands of young men engaged in romance scamming. They call themselves “Yahoo Boys,” and each year they catfish millions of dollars from lonely victims overseas, building a dizzying local economy from their phones.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this astonishing work of immersion journalism, Barragán takes us inside the lives of four of the Yahoo Boys of Lagos. We meet Biggy and Chibuike, each struggling with the temptations of fast money; Azeez, a tailor’s apprentice caught between the lure of crime and Nigeria’s economic crisis; and Richie, who is convinced that he’s responsible for the death of a woman in Kentucky he manipulated online for years. Some Yahoo Boys attain the status of folk heroes, buying houses and cars with the money they make, while others become dependent on drugs and “cash out”―successfully scam a victim―only to lose it all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThrough the Yahoo Boys’ twisting fortunes, Barragán discovers the psychological tactics they perfect, the brutal economic realities that drive them, and the moral dilemmas they confront. A work of radical empathy, this book reveals the human face behind a global phenomenon, and shows how loneliness in the West and poverty in Nigeria are two sides of the same screen.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Carlos Barragan","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45500245344432,"sku":null,"price":29.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0528\/6821\/9056\/files\/91tFbRNncXL._SL1500.jpg?v=1785813010","url":"https:\/\/www.umojabooks.com\/products\/the-yahoo-boys-love-deception-and-the-real-lives-of-nigerias-romance-scammers","provider":"Umoja House ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}