US kids are falling prey to a sophisticated network of scammers who extort thousands – and push some victims to suicide
A A second flexes his designer clothes. Another man posts a video of himself dancing and wearing a heavy gold chain. They boast to their eager followers about their path to wealth.
“BM got me a new car,” states one caption on a video. “$5,000 in a few hours.”
Unlike conventional social media influencers hawking travel, brands or recipes, their selling point is crime. The men are all based in Nigeria, and their get-rich-quick scheme is blackmailing other social media users – usually based in the United States and other western countries – by posing as potential female romantic interests and tricking their victims into sending nude photos.
Then the threats of distributing the victim’s images and demands for money begin.
The proclaimed scammers call themselves the “BM Boys”. “BM” means blackmail, and hundreds of young men in west Africa are now engaging in these schemes. The videos flaunting their lifestyles, publicized on TikTok to hundreds and sometimes thousands of followers, draw admiration and ambition from other young men who follow them and plead to be included in their scams.
“Boss please can I come to learn [the] work please,” one follower commented on a popular BM Boy’s TikTok, which drew more than 2,000 likes. “I beg you [in] the name of God please. teach me work.”
Some of the BM Boys’ accounts have garnered several hundred thousand followers. The Guardian has identified 22 TikTok accounts run by self-proclaimed BM Boys and also interviewed a 24-year-old Nigerian man who has been working as a blackmailer for eight years. He claims to have collected nearly $100,000 from his victims during that time.
“For me, it’s an easy thing to do,” says the blackmailer, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss illegal activity. “Any day, any time, we are working on our phones because if you don’t work, you’re not going to eat.”
Read full story here: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/11/sextortion-nigeria-bm-boys-tiktok
Katie McQue 