The Romance Scammer Who Made a Small Fortune Posing as a WWE Superstar

冒充WWE巨星的浪漫骗子：他如何赚取了一笔小财富

For the first edition of WIRED Book Club, we’ve chosen Carlos Barragán’s The Yahoo Boys: Love, Deception, and the Real Lives of Nigeria’s Romance Scammers. Barragán took an old-school shoe-leather approach to a very online subject, flying to Lagos to embed himself with a group of young, desperate grifters. The account he brings back is a funny, sad, enraging read about how the internet can fuel heartbreak. Below is a preview of one of our favorite passages. 作为《连线》读书俱乐部的第一期，我们选择了卡洛斯·巴拉甘（Carlos Barragán）的著作《雅虎男孩：爱、欺骗与尼日利亚浪漫骗子的真实生活》。巴拉甘针对这一高度网络化的主题，采取了传统的实地调查方法，飞往拉各斯，深入接触了一群绝望的年轻骗子。他带回的记录读起来既滑稽又悲伤，令人愤怒，揭示了互联网如何助长心碎。以下是我们最喜欢的片段之一。

Chibuike spent most nights dancing. He loved Afrobeats, breakdancing, and hip-hop, always impressing everyone with his backflips. Initially, he danced just for fun, but soon night club managers in Ikotun began paying him and his friends. It wasn’t much, just enough to survive until the next party. The real generosity came from the clientele, young men who spent money freely, almost recklessly. Some of them did “dorime”—Nigerian slang for lavish spending, particularly ordering bottles of alcohol and having them delivered with sparklers, all to the tune of the song “Ameno,” whose main lyrical hook is the fake Latin word dorime. Chibuike also witnessed some of them doing dorime with bottles of water: They would pay 50 times its value just to show off. 奇布伊克（Chibuike）大部分夜晚都在跳舞。他热爱非洲节拍（Afrobeats）、霹雳舞和嘻哈音乐，总能以空翻动作让所有人惊叹。起初，他跳舞只是为了好玩，但很快，伊科通（Ikotun）的夜店经理开始付钱给他和他的朋友们。钱不多，只够维持到下一场派对。真正的慷慨来自顾客，那些挥金如土、近乎鲁莽的年轻人。他们中有些人会进行“dorime”——这是尼日利亚俚语，指挥霍消费，特别是点购瓶装酒，并让服务员带着烟花棒送上桌，背景音乐通常是歌曲《Ameno》，其歌词核心就是那个伪拉丁语词汇“dorime”。奇布伊克甚至见过有人用矿泉水来“dorime”：他们愿意支付50倍的价格，只为了炫耀。

Chibuike had always known about Yahoo Boys. In a place like Ikotun, you had to be blind not to see them. But it was during those nights spent dancing that he decided to become one. 奇布伊克一直都知道“雅虎男孩”（Yahoo Boys，指尼日利亚的网络诈骗者）的存在。在伊科通这样的地方，除非眼瞎，否则不可能看不到他们。但正是在那些跳舞的夜晚，他决定成为其中一员。

He first asked a friend for help. The friend taught him the basics but left the neighborhood after a couple of months. To keep learning, Chibuike listened carefully to the guys on the street talking about terms like “formats,” “billings,” and “up dates,” and what to do when the client asked for a video call. Meanwhile, Chibuike tried all sorts of “jobs”: man to woman, woman to man, hookup, buying and selling fake goods on Facebook Marketplace … without success. He sometimes got $10, but he normally failed. No matter what he did, white clients stopped replying to his messages at some point. God, should I leave this hustle? Chibuike thought. For two years, he made barely any money. 他先是向一位朋友求助。朋友教了他一些基本知识，但几个月后就离开了社区。为了继续学习，奇布伊克仔细聆听街头的人们谈论“格式”（formats）、“账单”（billings）和“更新”（up dates）等术语，以及当客户要求视频通话时该怎么做。与此同时，奇布伊克尝试了各种“工作”：男扮女、女扮男、约会诈骗、在Facebook Marketplace上买卖假货……但都以失败告终。他有时能骗到10美元，但通常都会失败。无论他做什么，白人客户总会在某个时刻停止回复他的消息。上帝啊，我该放弃这行吗？奇布伊克心想。两年来，他几乎没赚到什么钱。

“I was always getting promises,” Chibuike remembered years later. “Clients would say, ‘I will send you the money today.’ But I got nothing.” “我总是得到承诺，”奇布伊克多年后回忆道，“客户会说，‘我今天就把钱汇给你。’但我什么也没收到。”

Instead of quitting, Chibuike changed his strategy: He began impersonating the world champion wrestler Cody Rhodes. “Celeb” scams were becoming increasingly popular. In Lagos, you could bump into young guys who pretended to be Elon Musk, Donald Trump, or Johnny Depp online. Chibuike chose Cody Rhodes because he knew all about the wrestler’s background. His stepdad was a big fan of WWE—he always rooted for John Cena—and watched the fights with Chibuike on an LG plasma TV. The matches were one of the few times they didn’t argue, and Chibuike got used to watching the fights live on YouTube. It was important for him to know when Rhodes was in the ring, so his victims wouldn’t find out that they weren’t speaking to the real wrestler. 奇布伊克没有放弃，而是改变了策略：他开始冒充世界冠军摔角手科迪·罗兹（Cody Rhodes）。“名人”诈骗正变得越来越流行。在拉各斯，你随处可见那些在网上假扮埃隆·马斯克、唐纳德·特朗普或约翰尼·德普的年轻人。奇布伊克选择科迪·罗兹，是因为他非常了解这位摔角手的背景。他的继父是WWE的忠实粉丝——他总是支持约翰·塞纳——并和奇布伊克一起在LG等离子电视上看比赛。看比赛是他们为数不多不吵架的时候，奇布伊克也习惯了在YouTube上观看现场直播。对他来说，了解罗兹何时在擂台上至关重要，这样他的受害者就不会发现他们面对的根本不是真正的摔角手。

Choosing to impersonate Cody Rhodes turned out to be a smart move for Chibuike’s scamming career. Little did Chibuike know, though, how drastically his life was about to change. 事实证明，选择冒充科迪·罗兹是奇布伊克诈骗生涯中的明智之举。然而，奇布伊克当时并不知道，他的生活即将发生多么剧烈的改变。

One Monday in 2018, Chibuike woke up in Ikotun with only 100 naira in his pocket. Feeling hungry, he spent it all on sugar, garri, and water. As he mixed the cold water with the starchy cassava flour, the 22-year-old was already wondering what he would eat next. 2018年的一个周一，奇布伊克在伊科通醒来时，口袋里只有100奈拉。感到饥饿的他把钱全花在了糖、加里（garri，一种木薯粉）和水上。当他把冷水和淀粉状的木薯粉搅拌在一起时，这位22岁的年轻人已经在担心下一顿该吃什么了。

A couple of hours later, he received a Facebook notification on his phone: A white woman in Ireland named Theresa had accepted his friend request. “How do I know you’re the real Cody Rhodes?” Theresa texted him. She had encountered many people calling themselves “Cody Rhodes” on Facebook, all asking for money. To convince her that he was indeed Cody Garrett Runnels Rhodes, Cody’s real name, Chibuike did three things. First, he sent her a driver’s license he had edited with a friend’s iPhone a few weeks earlier. 几小时后，他的手机收到了一条Facebook通知：一位名叫特蕾莎（Theresa）的爱尔兰白人女性接受了他的好友请求。“我怎么知道你是真正的科迪·罗兹？”特蕾莎发短信问他。她在Facebook上遇到过许多自称“科迪·罗兹”的人，他们都在要钱。为了让她相信他确实是科迪·加勒特·拉内尔斯·罗兹（科迪的真名），奇布伊克做了三件事。首先，他发给她一张几周前用朋友的iPhone编辑过的驾照照片。

Then he used reverse psychology, asking her if she was being real with him. “I don’t want someone who’s gonna play around me,” he said, insisting that he lived in Florida with his daughter while secretly in the process of divorcing his wife, Brandi. 接着，他使用了逆向心理学，反问她是否对他真诚。“我不想要一个会戏弄我的人，”他说，并坚称自己和女儿住在佛罗里达，同时谎称正在秘密办理与妻子布兰迪（Brandi）的离婚手续。

Last, he called her. “This is WWE Cody, aka Cody Rhodes,” Chibuike said, deepening his voice to imitate the wrestler’s. They talked for almost two hours. Initially, Theresa was afraid of heartbreak. Her husband had left her a year earlier, and she was still processing the trauma. But Chibuike convinced her quickly. “How long have you been watching my matches?” he asked. “A couple of years,” she replied. She was obsessed with Cody Rhodes’ “shiny” hair. “I would love to meet you,” he said, “but being a WWE wrestler, we have to go through some processes to meet each other.” He told her about filling out a “vacation form.” If she paid some money, they could meet up in person. 最后，他给她打了电话。“我是WWE的科迪，也就是科迪·罗兹，”奇布伊克压低嗓音模仿那位摔角手说道。他们聊了近两个小时。起初，特蕾莎害怕再次心碎。她的丈夫一年前离开了她，她仍在消化这段创伤。但奇布伊克很快说服了她。“你看我的比赛多久了？”他问。“几年了，”她回答。她对科迪·罗兹那头“闪亮”的头发着了迷。“我很想见你，”他说，“但作为一名WWE摔角手，我们见面必须经过一些流程。”他告诉她要填写一份“休假申请表”。如果她支付一些钱，他们就能亲自见面。

Several hours after their phone conversation, Theresa sent him three gift cards worth 100 euros each. It was Chibuike’s first big cash-out. To celebrate it, he treated himself to a big meal, bought a better phone (35,000 naira), and gold earrings (50,000 naira). The rest he “flexed” on drinks for his friends. He had earned more from her in a single day than he had in 18 months at the water factory. 在通话几小时后，特蕾莎给他发了三张价值100欧元的礼品卡。这是奇布伊克的第一笔大额进账。为了庆祝，他请自己吃了一顿大餐，买了一部更好的手机（35,000奈拉）和金耳环（50,000奈拉）。剩下的钱他用来请朋友喝酒“炫耀”。他从她身上一天赚到的钱，比他在水厂工作18个月赚的还要多。

Despite sending the first 300 euros and not meeting Cody Rhodes in person, Theresa continued chatting with him anyway. Her interest quickly deepened into an obsession, and soon, they were talking constantly—every day, almost every hour. Theresa was a mother of one in her late fifties, working in a mail-sorting facility in Dublin, or so Chibuike thought. She sometimes talked to him on the phone even while at work. They spoke so much that Chibuike used to run out of data and had to hang up, buy more, and call her back. They also sang songs together. 尽管寄出了最初的300欧元却没能见到科迪·罗兹本人，特蕾莎还是继续和他聊天。她的兴趣很快演变成了一种痴迷，不久之后，他们开始频繁通话——每天，几乎每小时都在聊。特蕾莎是一位五十多岁的单亲母亲，在都柏林的一家邮件分拣中心工作，至少奇布伊克是这么认为的。她有时甚至在工作时也会和他通电话。他们聊得太多，以至于奇布伊克经常用完流量，不得不挂断电话，买更多流量后再打回去。他们还会一起唱歌。

“She had an Alexa. When she was bored, she’d say: ‘Alexa, play “All of Me,”’ and we’d sing together,” Chibuike said. “她有一个Alexa音箱。当她无聊时，她会说：‘Alexa，播放《All of Me》’，然后我们就一起唱，”奇布伊克说。