Featured image via news.asiaone.com
Have you ever asked yourself why many young Nigerians (male and female) are visiting/relocating to Malaysia?
We all call them Yahoo Boys (A person that does shady deal using the internet as a medium for communicating) and wonder how they make their money.
There have been several speculations that they sell their kidney for 5 Million Naira (about RM60,000) but we actually don’t want to believe that story because they all would have been dead after selling their two kidneys to maintain the kind of life they live.
After a concluded research we are convinced on wider knowledge of how they make money in Malaysia.
How Young Nigerians Make Millions From Prostitution and Internet Fraud in Malaysia
With a population of 30 million, Malaysia has of lately become the ideal place for young Nigerians seeking greener pastures. On a daily basis hundreds of Nigerians relocates to Malaysia and to a lay man the question has always been what’s so special about Malaysia that a lot of young Nigerians prefer that here to Europe and America.
We gathered that the reason many people are going to Malaysia is because it is easier to make money here than Europe and America whose economy recently suffered setback due to the global economy crunch.
At the moment there are many Nigerians living in Malaysia including children of rich Nigerians who are schooling in Malaysia. The children of rich Nigerians (mostly Hausa) live largely in Nilai and attend Legenda College while other Nigerians live in Kepong.
Why many Nigerians are relocating to Malaysia has recently become a subject of discussion in the society. We gathered that most of the guys in Malaysia are either into drug business or internet fraud. While the ladies are into prostitution.
For the ladies, they mostly enter the country with a student Visa and after they are granted their one year residential permit, they ply the trade which earns them an income of nothing less than $10,000 monthly.
Countries like Bostwana, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzanian dominate the prostitution business but Nigerians play at the highest level and rather than hang out at clubs for customers, they have agents that love-vendor them for rich foreigners who visit Malaysia for business or Holiday.
Sources disclosed that the recent influx of young Nigerian girls into Malaysia is alarming and this is because they make good money here.
According to the sources:
1. Prostitution
In Malaysia there are about 3 women whose business is strictly to link the girls with the rich guys. You know Malaysia is just about 4 hours flight from Australia, so there are quite a lot of Caucasians who visit here on a regular basis.
Also are some Americans and European who come to Malaysia a lot because of the tourist attraction and while they are here, they make do with our girls for company.
They get paid at least $500 per night and the lucky ones can make as much as $1000 per night. The very smart ones are also into Yahoo business and all they need to do is lay their hands on the credit card number of the white guy and the rest is history”
2. Internet Fraud
Since Nigerians hardly get employed in Malaysia, most of the guys are either into drug or fraud business unlike Europe and America, Malaysians are a bit laid back and they are yet to realise the extent of to internet fraud and one of the reasons it is easy to make money in Malaysia is because a lot of foreigners go there and they make use of nothing but their credit card so getting information of their credit card is very easy.
There are several types of internet fraud including telemarketing fraud, fraud alert, Nigerian letter or 419 fraud, impersonation/identity fraud, advance fee scheme, health insurance and redemption/bond fraud but in Malaysia the most common one is the credit card fraud.
Nigerians connect with the Malaysians who work in a store, supermarket or shopping mall. The retailer (Malaysian) gets hold of customer’s credit card and swipe it under the counter where a machine containing a mobile phone SIM card receives the card’s information and transmits it to a Nigerian for reproduction.
In some cases, they buy information from hackers on the internet for as much as $1000 and clone/duplicate it into another plastic with a cloning machine. After cloning the card, they put their own identity on it and go to the store to buy stuffs like laptops or mobile phones which they send back to Nigeria for sale.
In most cases, they pose as business men buying Malaysian products in wholesale and bring it into Nigeria as imported goods to sell and that is one of the reasons we have a lot of Malaysian products in Nigeria.
Since most of their victims are in America, the time difference allows them to spend as much as possible depending on the card limit before the owner gets an SMS alert from his/her financial institution.
If they happen to get all the details of their victim such as social security no, date of birth and mother’s maiden name, they can break a bank if there is enough fund in the credit card.
How? All they have to do is call the bank and give them all the details claiming they are the rightful owner of the card and since they are in Malaysia on holiday they would want to raise their daily limit to as much as $10,000″ sources disclosed.
3. Drug Trafficking
Besides the internet fraud another way Nigerians make money in Malaysia is drug trafficking. Despite the fact that there is death penalty on whoever is caught with drugs in Malaysia Nigerians still take the risk of engaging themselves in drug business.
Quite a lot of Nigerians are in Malaysia prison awaiting trial while some have been sentenced to death through hanging.
An instance is a Nigerian mother of 5 sentenced to death in 2005 after refusing to overturn her drug trafficking conviction.
Also is a 29 years old Nigerian was arrested in march 2010 for trafficking drugs worth RM230,000 ($60,000) and recently was the case of a young Igbo man arrested for drug trafficking worth $40,000.
Sources disclosed that, “Drug is the most lucrative business in Malaysia. “Some people export it from here but that is quite dangerous but for those that can do that they are either very desperate or have spiritual backing they believe will always work for them. You don’t have to take drugs to Malaysia, all you have to do is have the right connection and be at the right place at the right time. If things work out right one can make as much as $30,000 per deal.
Right now, so many Yahoo boys who got broke during the recession have since relocated to Malaysia.
We learnt that securing a visa to Malaysia used to be very easy until lately when the Government put an embargo on the number of Nigerians that should be allowed into the country on a daily basis.
Apparently, there are two kinds of visa to Malaysia and they are student and social visa. The student visa is the easiest to get but takes about 2 months to finalize the documents.
To secure a student visa, all one needs is a medical report , photocopy of passport pages and O’level result which will be sent to the school of choice.
The school will then forward the documents to Immigration office for approval and after being approved the immigration approval and letter of offer will be sent back to the applicant after a sum of $800 must have been paid.
The applicant will now go to the embassy in Abuja, pay a sum $2,000 and being given a social visa with an indication below that he/she is billed to study in his her university of choice.
A maximum of 3 months visa will be issued and if not used within the period admission is forfeited. On arrival at the point of entry only the school authority can clear the applicant in and this is strictly based on the fact that he/she has the school fee with him/her.
The applicant will then be stamped to remain in the country for 2 weeks after which the applicant will submit his/her passport to the school authority which will then process a cover letter that will guaranty one year residential permit.
The popular schools Nigerians attend there are Kuala Lumpur Metropolitan University, Islamic College, Segi University Rima University and City University of Science and Technology.
Based on the fact that the student visa takes about 8 weeks, many Nigerians prefer to go for the social visa which takes less than 7 days.
To secure the social visa few documents are needed and at the point of entry one must have a BTA of nothing less than $2,500.
The BTA used to be $1,000 but based on the high number of Nigerians that storm the country on a daily basis it was increased.
Many Nigerians who enter with a social visa later go to one of the schools with necessary documents to secure an admission and with that they get a cover letter to remain in the country for one year.
But we cannot say all of them are bad and some of them are actually genuinely nice people.