Confronting the Yahoo Boys: A Blueprint for Fighting Back, A conversation with Erin West and Paul Raffile

What happens when investigators follow a scam all the way to the people behind it?

In this episode of Scam Rangers, host Ayelet Biger-Levin sits down with Erin West, founder of Operation Shamrock and former prosecutor, and cybercrime researcher Paul Raffile to hear the incredible story of their investigation into financial sextortion.

Erin and Paul created a decoy social media profile posing as a teenage boy and quickly became targets of a sextortion scam. They followed the digital trail, built a blueprint of the network, and traveled to Nigeria to find the people behind it.

There, they interviewed scammers, worked with local partners and law enforcement, explored the role of juju rituals in some scam operations, and ultimately confronted the suspected scammer they had tracked.

“We came here to find you. We’re two investigators.”

What they discovered raises bigger questions about how we fight scams. Detection and prevention matter , but what about deterrence and consequences? When the scammers themselves were asked what could stop more people from committing these crimes, their answer was striking: more arrests.

In this episode

• Inside a real-world financial sextortion investigation
• Following the trail from social media to Nigeria
• Building a blueprint of the criminal network
• What scammers revealed about how they operate
• The role of juju rituals in some scam operations
• Confronting the suspected scammer
• Why deterrence and enforcement matter
• What law enforcement and industry need to do differently

About the guests

Erin West is the founder of Operation Shamrock and a former Deputy District Attorney who spent 26 years prosecuting crime, including eight years investigating high-tech and cryptocurrency-enabled crime. https://www.linkedin.com/in/erinnordbywest/

Paul Raffile is a cybercrime researcher specializing in transnational organized crime and financial sextortion, with a background in government intelligence, corporate intelligence and digital investigations. https://www.linkedin.com/in/raffile/

About the host

Ayelet Biger-Levin is the Founder and CEO of RangersAI, the company behind ScamRanger. With more than 15 years in fraud prevention and cybersecurity, she is an Ambassador for the Global Anti-Scam Alliance and host of Scam Rangers, exploring how we can better protect people and fight scams. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ayelet-biger-levin/

To learn more about RangersAI: https://www.rangersai.com/