Delta 2023: I will work with Yahoo Boys – Omo-Agege

The Deputy President of the Senate, and governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Delta State, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, has said that he will utilise the potentials of internet fraudsters, otherwise known as Yahoo Boys.

Omo-Agege made the promise on Wednesday, November 30, 2022, during the party’s ward-to-ward governorship campaign in the Aniocha North Local Government Area (LGA) of Delta State’s Onicha-Ugbo, Issele-Uku, and Onicha-Olona communities.

“We will harness the potential and ingenuity of the Yahoo Boys by engaging them in their best positive ways by asking them to develop apps, and the state government will be a shareholder.

“By so doing, we are creating employment for our children,” Omo-Agege said.

‘Yahoo Boys’ are young Nigerian men who specialise in various types of cybercrime, from petty scams to diversion of hefty sums.

A journalist noticed in 2020, if you measure cybercrime as a country, it would be “the world's third-largest economy after the U.S. and China”. That's because its predicted costs alone by 2025, in terms of understanding its impact on our global economy, are likely to scale up to $10.5 trillion annually..

Hushpuppi: Ramon Abbas (born 11 October 1982), commonly known as Hushpuppi, Hush, or Ray Hushpuppi is a Nigerian former Instagram influencer and convicted Yahoo Boy. He was sentenced in the United States to 11 years for conspiracy to launder money obtained from business email compromise frauds and other scams, including schemes that defrauded a US law firm of about $40 million, illegally transferred $14.7 million from a foreign financial institution, and targeted to steal $124 million from an English Premier League club.

Until his arrest by the Dubai Police in June 2020 and subsequent extradition to the United States, Hushpuppi posted pictures and videos of his lavish spending on exotic cars, watches, designer clothes, bags from expensive brands like Gucci, Fendi, and Louis Vuitton and of himself boarding helicopters, with celebrities, footballers, and Nigerian politicians or while on charter jets. He claimed to be a real estate developer. He also holds a passport from St Kitts and Nevis, which was fraudulently obtained through a sham marriage to a St. Kitts and Nevis citizen.