204 african appropriations
and purportedly responded enthusiastically. Simon quotes a popular an-
ecdote among Nigerian scammers. In the early days of advance-fee fraud,
when scammers would “send out ten letters ‘requesting assistance’ for
transferring money abroad, they would receive 12 responses signifying
interest” (8). Therefore, without ignoring the agency of Nigerians, I find
it useful to keep in mind that from the outset, European and American
businesspeople played some part in laying the groundwork for Nigeria-
related cybercrime.
A CYBERCRIME INDUSTRYOver the past thirty years, the magnitude of 419 activity picked up
the pace, not only in keeping with the decline of the Nigerian economy
caused mainly by looting military dictators and the hardships of World
Bank–imposed structural adjustment programs that left thousands of
aspiring young men without jobs but also thanks to the spread of new
information and communication technologies. The history of 419—its
transformation from a confidence trick based on a few type-written let-
ters posted around 1980 to “a globe-girdling blizzard of instantaneous
importunings” (Glickman 2005: 473) in the wake of the digital revolution
around 2000—provides a powerful example of how new media technolo-
gies are appropriated within specific social environments and adapted by
their users to meet their very specific needs. Internet, email, and mobile
telephone technology made scamming a lot cheaper, faster, and, through
the anonymity offered by these technologies, even safer for individual
scammers. Hence, technology broadened the scope of 419 exponentially
(Simon 2009). Experienced scammers were able to transfer and adapt their
knowledge to the new communicative environment, which was made up
of computer-sav v y newcomers whose numbers grew by the day. Thus, the
internet and email literally “democratized” scamming.
Men dominate the practice of advance-fee fraud. It is carried out both
by scammers working alone and by hierarchically organized groups. At
the top of such groups is a “chairman”; at the bottom are so-called “boys,”
the majority of whom appear to be in their twenties. The boys are respon-