Interview 9
Yourbet (Pseudonymize) is 28 years old. He lives in his father’s house with other siblings and family members. Yourbet has been in the scamming industry for 3 years. Whereas Yourbet has leaders, who also has somebody who is another him. The interview was conducted at the researcher’s place of residence. The interview session was not recorded because Yourbet did not subscribe to that. Therefore, the script is based on the notes that were taken during the interview.
Yourbet opinion on illegality and immorality
Yourbet sees illegality and immorality as different things. Yourbet believes that something is illegal if it affects the national development and police or law enforcement agencies punish people when they do it. He believes that something is immoral if its haram (forbidden in the Quran). According to him, immorality has double punishment and illegality has one punishment. To him, immorality is punishable in this world and in the judgement day but illegality is punishable in this world along. He also mentioned that illegal things are different in different countries and that immorality is universal everywhere. He gave an example of gay marriage. According to him, illegal marriage is not illegal in USA but it is illegal in Ghana. Also, he mentioned the case of scamming to illustrate immorality. He said that, for scamming, it doesn’t matter where you are, whether in the USA, Canada, or Ghana, every reasonable person will know that scamming is immoral. 

Yourbet perception on adhering to the laws and moral codes
Yourbet mentioned that it is good to obey the laws and moral codes. According to him, if you don’t obey the laws, you will always have problems with police and the law enforcement agencies and that if you don’t obey morality, God will punish you in this world and in the judgement day. He mentioned that, anybody who loves peace, should always try to obey the laws and the moral teaching. However, he believes that it’s difficult to obey all the time because of difficult life situations. According to him, he knows that he shouldn’t have been scamming but he is scamming because life is difficult and scamming is the best option for him to survive. He mentioned that, even if he will rate disobeying the law or the moral codes, he prefers to break the law because he believes that people can go unpunished when they break the law. According to him, some break the law but when they are not caught, the police cannot punish them. He also mentioned that sometimes people break the law and politicians or rich people can help them from been punished. In respect to moral codes, he believes that nobody can escape the punishment of immorality because God oversees everything and politician or rich person can make God to not punish people. He mentioned that poverty, lack of jobs, anger, and frustration sometimes make us break the law or morality. 

Yourbet opinion on the illegality and immorality of scam
Yourbet mentioned that scamming is not illegal but immoral. According to him, scammers don’t steal from anybody in Ghana and that even police officers would have arrested them if it was illegal. To him, the police know them (scammers) and they (police) even praise them and support them. He mentioned that scamming be illegal in USA, or abroad but can’t be illegal in Ghana. According to him something is illegal if it affects the country but scamming doesn’t affect the country. However, Yourbet, believes that every scammer knows what scamming in bad and immoral. He mentioned that scamming is “haram” (forbidden in the Quran) and their culture also reject defrauding. He quoted from the Quran saying that “Whatever you do on earth, you shall be guide accordingly in the day of judgement” and mentioned that every scammer knows scamming is immoral. He described scamming as a “bullshit” thing that should be recommending to anyone. According to him, they (scammers) kill some of the white people. According to him, he has never spent a client money till the client dies but he knows other scammers caused the death of clients. According to him, he knows a scammer who made a client sold her house because he promised the client that he is sending a gold worth 10 times her house and that they (scammer and client) could live the best live they want. According to him, the scammer took the money from the client and never delivered any gold to her and it led to the death of the client. According to him, scamming is very bad and he doesn’t want to die as a scammer. According to him, he is praying to God to get big money from the scam so he can switch to legitimate businesses and stop the scam. He mentioned that, they (scammers) lie to the white man and take their money and its immorally bad. He mentioned that, if scammers (including himself) are happy that they are taking money from the white people, it doesn’t make scam good because his religion preaches against scamming. He added that, he doesn’t feel proud to be a scammer because he fears the punishment from God.
He also mentioned that the scamming is stressing him and that people might think its easy for him and other scammers. According to him, dealing the moral guilt of the scamming is a difficult thing. According to him, he sleeps every night and wakes up every morning in the guilty of scamming. Another thing he mentioned is that, its also damaging the life of him and other scammers, explaining that they can’t sleep at night because they have to stay awake to chat with clients all night. According to him, this causes him and other scammers to use some drugs to help them chat through the night and that it’s very bad for their health and social life in general. He mentioned that, for three years, he has not been able to sleep at night and its affecting him. According to him, life is more precious than anything that is why he does the scam to survive. According to him, he has no job and without scam, he’s wife, child, parents, and siblings will suffer. According to him, if a scammer doesn’t have any clients who can send him money, it’s difficult to live because nobody in their neighborhood or family will support them. He said that sometimes he buys house appliance when he receives money from his clients and those appliance are to sold in case he losses he’s clients. According to him, without the scam, many of them would have been killing people on the street and taking their money. According to him, he regretted being a scammer but he can’t stop now because he’s still surviving on it. According to him, he always tell his team members that when they get substantial amount from the scam, they should quite and do legitimate businesses.  
He also believe that the recent increase of mortality of the youth is connected to scamming. He mentioned that, some of them (scammers) steal money from clients, buy cars, go to clubs and pick prostitutes with the cars and enjoying themselves with someone’s (client) money. According to him, Anytime, the clients griefs the pain of the scammer caused him or her, it causes God to revenge for the clients. According to him, because of the grief and curses of clients, that’s why scammers are dying these days. He mentioned that, some scammers becomes mad not because of mental issues or any spirituality he (the scammer) used, but because of the curses from Clients. 
He also mentioned that the scam is also bad with respect to his marriage and taking care of his son. According to him, he leaves his wife in bed every night to chat with clients and the wife is always complaining about him not paying attention to her sexual needs. He added that, he has to take his child to school every morning but because he has stay awake all night to chat with clients, he doesn’t usually send his son to school and its affecting him psychological. He mentioned that if any scammer says he’s happy scamming, that scamming is lying because its not fun. 
He also mentioned that, he doesn’t use his laptop when he’s son is still awake because he doesn’t want his son to know that his father is an online criminal. According to him, whatever a person does in the presence of their children, the children will grow up to do similar things they witnessed their parents do and he doesn’t want his children to be scammers. According to him, if he doesn’t stop the scamming or avoid his son watching him scam, it can make his son a bigger criminal someday and he doesn’t want that to happen. 
Yourbet view about clients
Yourbet believes that the clients are better people than scammers. According to him, clients are good people who are searching to find love and scammers are either frustrated people who are searching to find someone to steal from. According to him, the white people they scam are those who are willing to love and to support their partners and that scammers are using these attributes of clients to defraud clients. He illustrated a rhetorical questions – he narrated “ ‘person A’ wants to marry and searching for love and ‘person B’ is poor and searching for somebody to steal from. Unfortunately for person A, he found person B who promised to marry and love him and person A fell in love with person B. person A keeps loving person B and supporting the financially needs of person B. But person B plays with person A’s feelings and stealing from person A. Among person A and B, who is a good person and who is a bad person?”. According to him, if you are person A, won’t you feel cheated and betrayed? He added that, the thief cannot be more moral than the person he (thief) steals from. He concluded his narration saying that person B is the scammer and A is the client. According to him, he knows that its immoral to be stealing from good people who genuinely wanted to help someone who pretended to love them. According to him, sometimes, the client can be poor too but always try to support the scammer. 
Yourbet view on who becomes a client
According to Yourbet, some people scam blacks, their neighbors, friends, family, and anybody they believe they can get money from. He described those people as local scammers, also known as GAJA boys. According to him, those GAJA boys don’t even know how sakawa boys operates. He mentioned that, for sakawa boys, they steal from white people and not from blacks. He mentioned that, he cannot steal or scam a black because blacks and particularly Ghanaians are poor and he can’t steal from somebody who finds it difficult to feed himself or herself. According to him, the reason he even steal the white people is because he believes the money he takes from them cannot affect them so much. According to him, he’s very careful the amount of money he takes from his client because he fears to be cursed by clients. According to him, those who scam local people don’t have any conscience and are shameful people. According to him, those scamming locally are not different from thieves and they can easily be arrested.