Jacob JudahAug 11, 2026 – 5.00amThey are love stories that always end in tears. Nigerian internet scammers, posing as young women or dashing celebrities, scam Westerners too lonely or too naive to see the warning signs.For Carlos Barragán, the story is personal. After his mother was duped by a Nigerian fraudster posing as an American soldier promising to ship gold from Syria, the Spanish journalist set out to discover the men behind the scamming accounts. How, he wondered, had they convinced an otherwise well-educated, middle-class woman in Madrid to bare her soul to a stranger online?Financial TimesSubscribe to gift this articleGift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe.Subscribe nowAlready a subscriber? Fetching latest articles