Millions of Nigerians are unemployed and a months-long strike by university lecturers means many young people are desperately looking for jobs. As he is based in Suriname, it would be difficult to prosecute him.

Mr Rose told the BBC that he was doing nothing illegal, and was not aware of the cybercrimes law in Nigeria. One government official said LMS risked being deregistered in Nigeria if it was involved in deception and adult content.

using a financial card to fraudulently obtain services.

sending messages that are grossly offensive, pornographic, indecent, obscene or menacing.

sending electronic messages that materially misrepresents facts.

The activities of these people border on internet fraud in Nigeria under a law that prohibits posting obscene or adult content online, experts told the BBC. This tool gives the deception more credibility and raises false hopes of a meeting which never happens. However, it does not explain why its Nigerian workers use the map tool to fake their location. Meteor Interactive says its Terms & Conditions makes it clear that some of its profiles are fictional and that “the possibility of a meet-up are not possible”. “They hook you saying they live in your town or close by and want to meet you “TONIGHT” you spend credits texting them and when you want to set a place and time to meet then the excuses start,” he said. One man said he had spent more than $300 on credits on the false hope of meeting the women in person: “I must have texted 20 women and was always put off when it was suggested to meet personally,” said one man, who claimed he had spent $64.99 on a site owned by Meteor Interactive.Īnother man said he had “bought over $400 of credits with the understanding that the women were real… my bad at not reading the fine print”, he said. The BBC has seen comments from men online, who said they spent from $300 to $700 on these websites hoping to meet the “women” they were chatting with.

At the end of training that can last from a few days to a week, they are given log-in details on the websites, where they can see personal information such as the home address, phone number and age of subscribers.

How old is my skype account