Interview 2
Manuka (Pseudonymize) is 33 years and live along in his house. He has 12 siblings from a polygamous home. Manuka is a leader who have other scammers working under him at the local level. But Manuka is has international cooperation with scammers in Nigeria, USA, and Canada. The interview was conducted at Manuka’s residence. The interview was not recorded, therefore, the script is based on notes taken during the interview session.
Illegality and immorality
Manuka believed that Immorality is connected to the what the religion condemns and illegal to be what the law forbids. Whereas Manuka believe that illegality is subjective and punishable by human beings, he believe that morality is ultimate, universal and punishable by God. In other word, he believe that the punishment for illegal activities is based on who the offender is and the punishment for immorality is universal and on one can escape it. He gave an example of murdering someone. According to him, in the face of the law someone can kill another person and go unpunished but he believes that when someone kills another person, whether the law punish the person or not, God will punish the killer. 
Obeying the laws, moralities and breaking them
According to Manuka, it is impossible to always follow the laws and the moral codes. He holds that there are some social forces such as family pressure, pleasure, poverty, and injustice, romantic love that make people to do things immoral or illegal. According to him, sometimes he wants to obey the law but the country is not helping people to follow the law. He mentioned the time he had to find High School admission to his younger brother. According to him, his younger brother passed better than most of his colleagues who had admissions to High Schools but his brother didn’t get any admission. According to him, he tried to get the admission for this brother through the due processes but it couldn’t get it. Finally, he had to bride some High school administrative staffs to get the admission for his younger brother. According to him, when a person wants to follow the laws in the country, nothing good will come the person’s way. He mentioned that, to survive in Ghana, a person should forget about law and do want he or she thinks is right. On the other hand, mentioned that, though the moral codes are very important but one cannot strictly follow them because follow the moral codes at all times also has implications. He mentioned that sometimes someone can just overlook the moral code and hurt your feelings or hurt your family member and the best way for a person to punished the offender is to pay him back. He gave an example that, if someone does anything immoral or illegal to hurt him, he will do the same thing to the person. 
He explained that sometimes acting against the law and being immoral is the only way to solve problems. He gave an example that some people involve in prostitution, robbery, and stealing because of poverty. He also believe that some people do immoral things because of spiritual possession. He gave an example of a girl in her community who has sexual intercourse with every man because she is possess by bad spirits.  He also mentioned that the law cannot stop people from doing bad things, arguing that people can easily go against the law and go unpunished. He argued that only the fear of God can make people stop doing bad things. He also added that  he believe that when he does anything immoral and pray to God, He will forgive him because that is what his religion said. Base on this believe, he mentioned that sometimes when conditions such as financial difficulties push him to do some wrong or cause him to do immoral things, he will pray to God for forgiveness. Finally, he said, doing the immoral thing is not the problem but not praying over them is the main problem. According to him, when a person prays over his/her immoral act, God will forgive them and not punish them for their act again. 
…the problem is not the bad things you do… for example, when you do something bad to your mother, what will you do?...you will beg your mother to forgive you and she will forgive…my brother, she will forgive you because my brother your love you too much…is the same thing for this immoral thing. If you do something like immoral, like is not the problem…the problem is that if you don’t pray to God to forgive you, it will be a problem..
Scamming as illegal and immoral
Manuka opines that people say that the scamming is immoral and that according to his religion is bad, but he thinks that scamming is good for him, explaining that it is the only source he can earn money. He mentioned that he has no education nor job so scamming is the only way he can get money. He mentioned that scamming is bad because his religion, Islam instructs them not to defraud another people and that scamming is good because it provides him his economic means. He also added that, he is scamming and he feels its good and he will encourage those without jobs to do it instead of robbery and traditional stealing. He added that without scamming the world or the country, especially the city will not be interesting. According to him, when scam was not common every apart of the lives of the indigens was boring and poor but the emergence of scam has improved their lives such as entertainment, economic activities, infrastructure, and luxury ( including going to Dubai and other countries to spend time). He mentioned that few years ago when scam was limited, young boys could not do anything meaningful for their economic and social life but the emergence of scam has supported the youth to build beautiful houses for themselves and their families, makes entertainment more interesting by sponsoring musicians, creating jobs for other people who are not scamming, providing developmental conditions for their communities (straight lightening and roads). He also said that the emergence of scam has brough competition among the youth to hustle and make money to support the economic growth of the city. After mentioning all these, he concluded that, scamming is not bad and that it is only bad if you are scamming somebody who is a good person, or somebody who is poor or sick. However, he argue that his not challenging what his religion said about defrauding, but to him he thinks scamming is good, not only for the scammers but for their families and the country. 
Manuka attitude with Clients
According to Manuka, scamming is a business that involves stealing from people who they (scammers) pretend to be in relationship with. According to him, even in the traditional society, hurting each other is common in relationship and that hurting clients is part of the scam because it’s built on relationship. He mentioned that in the scamming process, feeling guilty depends on the kind of client. He said that sometimes he feels guilty of scamming someone when the person is also poor or sick or even in distress. Manuka mentioned that he had a client that he decided to stop scamming even though he still had the chance to continue taking money from her. According to him, he was scamming an American woman and decided to stop scamming her when he discovered that the woman lost all her two legs in an accident. According to him, the woman wasn’t rich but she always tried to get money for him and that, one day the woman’s son took her mother’s phone and saw his chat with his mother. According to him, the son of the woman texted him and told him (scammer) that the woman lost her two legs (also, took a picture, showing his mother’s amputated legs) and told him not to hurt his mother if all what he is saying to her was a lie. According to him, he decided to stop scamming the woman because he didn’t want to have double sin. He also mentioned that if he had known that the woman was disable, he wouldn’t have scammed her in the first place. According to him, he didn’t just stop talking to the woman because he believed that, she could be hurt that way. He mentioned that he to keep chatting with the client, however, spend reduce the time he spends on her. According to him, when he meets a rich client who is healthy, he doesn’t feel guilty of scamming such person. According to him, he doesn’t say anything wrong with scamming somebody who is rich and healthy because such people are not suffering.
According to him, white people are wicked in general and he cannot have a real romantic relationship with a white person. He believes that white woman are very wicked and can kill a person. According to him, When a white woman has ever been scammed, she can do anything to kill the scammer and that it will be suicidal to even think of having a real relationship with a white woman. He explained that when a white woman has ever been scammed and you meet her, she will be thinking that you were the person who scammed her and she will do anything to get you. As part of the his opinions, he believes that when a white woman claims to be in love with a black guy, she wants to kills the black guy because another person scammed her. Based on this he believes that he will not agree to be in a relationship with a white woman in real life. He, however believes that some white people are good but it’s difficult to know which one and that being in a relationship with a good white person can be good. According to him, if he had to chance of being in a relationship with a good white woman, he will for or it because he will enjoy the love and the money.  
Manuka dealing with the feeling of guilt
Manuka mentioned that anytime he feels guilty about a client, he tries to stop taking money from that clients and that he will not just stop talking to the person because stopping can break the hurt of that client. According to him, if a scammer concentrate on the stories that clients tell him, that scammer cannot continue with the scam. According to him, sometimes clients have sad stories and paying attention to those stories is not good for scammers. He mentioned that, the best way to stop feeling guilty is to not pay attention to the clients sad stories or stop scamming them when you can’t longer control the feeling. He mentioned that, shoppers and wirers (substructures in the scamming industry) do not face this guilt because they don’t chat with clients. According to him, he is a chatter and he is more expose to the stories of clients so he always try to avoid the sad stories. He mentioned that, whenever his client is diving into talking about their sad stories, he will try to change the conversation to romance. According to him, talking about love will not make him feel guilty.  
Who can be Manuka Client
Manuka explained that though most of their victims are in foreign countries such as USA, Canada, China, Australia, UK, Europe they also have some Ghanaian clients. He mentioned that having a client in Ghana is not exactly scam but another form of scam. He mentioned that scamming somebody you know or in Ghana is different from scamming a white person. According to him, he has a Ghanaian client called Kofi. According to him, the Kofi had a Facebook relationship with a girl in Tamale and that he hacked the girl’s Facebook accounts and started chatting with Kofi, pretending to be the girl. According to him, After taking money from Kofi for several times, Kofi finally realized the scam and stopped sending money to him. He also added that he ever scammed a person in his community that he new had money but was known to be greedy. According to him, the man liked women so, in collaboration with a female scammer, he created a fake Facebook account with a girl’s picture and used it to scam the man. According to him, the girl’s picture he used wasn’t the same girl who he partnered with and that the female counterpart was involve in case the client wants a phone call. Another important thing he mentioned was that, the local scam is not his main focus because the local narrative doesn’t give enough money, instead they relied on the Foreign clients. Also, though not about himself, he mentioned that some of the scammers even scam their non-scamming friends who likes women. According some scammers creates fake profiles or even through WhatsApp, use those channels to scam their non scamming friends who like women. He gave an example of a scammer who created a fake Facebook account and chatted his friend (client). This friend (client) always tell him (the scammer) about his relationship with girls, both real relationships and online relationships. Based on this, he always advise his friend to give his Facebook girl (scammer friend) the money she (the scammer) requested in order to lure her to meet in-person. According to Manuka, his scammer friend was able to scam his non-scamming friend for a longer time before the non-scamming friend decided to stop sending money to his Facebook girlfriend. 
Have you ever considered stopping the scam…if yes or no, why?
According to him, he thinks of making more legitimate investments to support the scamming incase the scam becomes less lucrative in the future. According to him, Even though the scam is good but he doesn’t want his children to grow up and tailor all their effort to scamming, arguing that if he doesn’t do any investment to make his children to think of other means to make money, they will grow up to be scammers which might not help them in life because he feels that scamming might not be lucrative in the future. He also added that, if actually what people and the religion said about the scamming is true, he doesn’t want to die as a scammer. So, he plans to stop scamming and pray to God to forgive him.