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The Sakawa Boys: Internet Scamming in Ghana
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The Sakawa Boys: Internet Scamming in Ghana

2011 · 21 MIN · EN · STATUS: [ STREAMING ]
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In Accra, a generation of young Ghanaian men has turned internet fraud into a spiritual practice. VICE host Thomas Morton meets the Sakawa boys, scammers who visit Juju priests before logging on, paying for rituals meant to make their emails and romance scams irresistible to targets abroad. The film shows the priests at work, the costly ceremonies involved, and the scammers themselves explaining how they got into the trade and how they spend the proceeds on cars and designer clothes. Sakawa has grown past a hustle into a cultural phenomenon, with its own music and clothing lines, tabloid headlines warning of witchcraft, and Christian preachers denouncing the priests for competing with the church. Law enforcement officials describe trying to track the scammers with almost no resources, while the government worries about the damage to Ghana's international reputation. Morton treats the subject as a national argument rather than a simple crime story, following how technology and traditional belief have fused into something the country cannot quite decide how to feel about.