Experiences of local victims of Yahoo Boys’ socio-economic cybercrimes in Nigeria

Lazarus, Suleman ORCID: 0000-0003-1721-8519 and Auwal, Aminu Muhammad (2025) Experiences of local victims of Yahoo Boys’ socio-economic cybercrimes in Nigeria. Discover Psychology. ISSN 2731-4537 (In Press)

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Abstract

Despite much cybercrime originating in Nigeria, little is known about national victims compared to international victims of these crimes. In this study, we utilise the results from a survey of 1034 university staff and students to assess their experiences of victimisation using the Tripartite Cybercrime Framework (TCF). This framework distinguishes between socio-economic, geopolitical, and psychosocial forms of cybercrime. The analysis revealed a gender distribution skewed toward males (64.9%) and a notable predominance of Master’s students. Among participants who reported cybercrime victimisation (65.4%), all incidents were classified under the socio-economic category. This pattern highlights the dominance of financially motivated cybercrime in the Nigerian context. These offences, listed in descending order of prevalence, include e-banking and payment-card fraud (58.6%), identity theft (11.1%), job scams (10.9%), cryptocurrency scams (10.6%), non-delivery scams (4.8%), and phishing attacks (4.0%). Alongside these TCF-related findings, our data indicate that among affected individuals, 354 men (52.4%) and 322 women (47.6%) reported negative consequences. Overall, 64.9% of victims were male and 35.1% were female. However, only 38.7% of victims reported their incidents to authorities, and 14.9% received any form of restitution. This study builds on preliminary findings by pioneering the use of the Tripartite Cybercrime Framework with a larger, more diverse quantitative dataset to provide valuable insights into global research gaps and response disparities.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2025 The Author(s)
Divisions:	Social Policy
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory K Law H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
Date Deposited:	10 Oct 2025 10:36
Last Modified:	10 Oct 2025 13:15
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/129780

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