The Road to Chad/Darfur

[The Kernel]

This is a bit old but I came across this recently and I searched and couldn't find anything else posted about it.

The Road to Chad/Darfur

For those that need a little background, there is a group of people known as "scambaiters" who have launched a crusade of sorts against Nigerian 419 scammers who email them in an attempt to get them to waste as much time as possible on try to limit their time finding true marks.

This story goes even further where a scambaiter managed to talk three Nigerian scammers into a road trip to Darfur by convincing them that there was a priest who need hundreds of thousands of dollars of donation money to be safely deposited into a bank. Long story short, two of this fellows went missing and were probably killed by militants after crossing into Sudan from Chad.

I posted this in SLAM because I see that there is a fair bit of ethics involved in this sort of practice. I don't personally have any ethical problem with what this particular scambaiter did, but the fact remains that he did send two men to their deaths even though they did so believing them were going to rob a priest out of hundreds of thousands of dollars of money meant for refugees. Whether you find this act sick or not, it's a fascinating read.

[Simon_Jester]

I may be missing something, but is there even any evidence that "the boys" (the two men you're referring to) ever existed?

[Serafina]

Well, was the scambaiter aware of the danger - did he send them there intentionally, while knowing the risk?
If he didn't i can't see any serious moral problem with what he did - if he only tried to scam the scammers into loosing money and time, he merely tried to hoist them with their own petard. Their death would have been an unfortunate, incalculable outcome.

[The Kernel]

I may be missing something, but is there even any evidence that "the boys" (the two men you're referring to) ever existed?

Yes, the author got a call from the UNHCR about the boys crossing the border and the emails he got from the boys had IP addresses that traced back to Chad. The emails he also got from the fake barrister also were consistent with him being in Sudan.

[The Kernel]

Well, was the scambaiter aware of the danger - did he send them there intentionally, while knowing the risk?

I don't think he actually thought they'd go through with making it all the way to Darfur but that was certainly his goal. This particular scambaiter has sent scammers on these sorts of wild goose chases before.

If he didn't i can't see any serious moral problem with what he did - if he only tried to scam the scammers into loosing money and time, he merely tried to hoist them with their own petard. Their death would have been an unfortunate, incalculable outcome.

On the contrary, he is quite clear that he personally feels quite proud about what happened. Read the "Ethics" section if you want more details.

I'm not sure I entirely disagree with him either--these people are total scum and if they got murdered while on the way to rob a humanitarian worker then they deserve whatever they got.

[Broomstick]

I confess I don't have much sympathy for people who die while committing felonies or the equivalent.

Did the scambaitter wild-goose-chase them to Darfur with the intent of getting them hurt or killed? If yes, then he is arguably also criminal. If no - well, it sucks to be a thief.

[PeZook]

My gut reaction is of course "Good riddance", since these people wanted to rob a guy from money they thought he wanted to use to help victims of a brutal conflict.

Looking at it more coldly: generally speaking, modern society despises vigilantism because it leads to massive problems in the long term. Hence, the proper way to deal with scammers like these is the police, courts, etc.

The problem is that this breaks down in places like Chad/Darfur making that solution impractical. Furthermore, these nice people obviously had no trouble thinking they'd rob humanitarian workers. Possibly even kill them. If they had any success with their 419 scams, they quite possibly ruined lives.

So: no harm was done, except to criminals. No harm will be done in the long term, either, because the general lawlessness of the region makes it irrelevant. Several people will possibly not be scammed in the future.

Legally speaking, though, yeah, the guy is probably a criminal if he intended from the start to get these guys killed. Ethically, I don't see much of a problem with it.

[Sarevok]

These scammers went to Darfur with the express intention of robbing someone. Even if they were intentionally mislead to their deaths it is impossible find any sympathy for them.

[sirocco]

No I still find it wrong!

He uses the example of tossing a bag full of money off a cliff and not feeling bad if someone jumped off after it. Even though he knew that this particular person would jump. Woow!

His excuse is that everyone knows that such action is lethal, therefore jumping off is their own decision and dying in the process is their own fault. For the same reason, the scams often perpetrated by those Nigerian people are based on something plain illegal. So the people who fall for that are fully responsible for the consequences because they chose to participate.

Seriously, You just can't accept that.

In both case, you have to consider that someone can be in such a state of moral and financial fragility that he can't think straight. And when you are taking advantage of that, you are fully responsible for what's going to happen to them.

Condoning the action of this vigilante is accepting the premise that he won't face the consequences of his actions because 'he's fighting the bad guys' and therefore won't bother with laws and all that sh*t.

[Ghost Rider]

In both case, you have to consider that someone can be in such a state of moral and financial fragility that he can't think straight. And when you are taking advantage of that, you are fully responsible for what's going to happen to them.

Given what events were protrayed, you are the onus to prove the underline. Simply going that you think is wrong is not a rebuttal.

[salm]

One problem I see here is that the two boys might have been under massive pressure to go on the trip. The guy who sent them there, after all, was their uncle. I don´t know how much pressure an older memeber of the familiy can put on younger ones in their area but it wouldn´t be surprising if that was the case.

[Zaune]

Knowingly sending someone into extreme personal danger under false pretences sounds a hell of a lot like premeditated murder to me, and it still would have been attempted murder if they hadn't fallen for it.

And yes, these individuals have pulled some very cruel and exploitative scams, often on people who can't afford the loss. That doesn't make sending them to their deaths justified or proportionate. There's a difference between losing your life savings and losing your life.

[aimlessgun]

It's hard to have sympathy for the guy getting baited, but reading through the whole email chain made me feel a little queasy.

I don't think the guy accomplished anything good here. Are these baiters actually going to act as a real deterrent to scamming? Is the guy who got baited going to feel any remorse for scamming people because some vigilante screwed with his life? Can the baiter know for sure that these 2 boys had actually ruined anyone's lives beforehand, or would have in the future? Do the boys share equal responsibility with their 'boss' 'Mr. Kiku'?

In the end it just seems like a mean-spirited and harmful (possibly deadly) prank carried out less for justice and more for the personal satisfaction and entertainment of the baiter.

And as it has been said, you don't send people to die for theft or fraud. Good god. In the section where he lays out his ethics/justification, he talks about a victim whose life has been ruined. It's pretty terrible. But the guy isn't wandering around a warzone with a high risk of being killed or robbed or tortured. Maybe the baiter thinks robbing a white american is about equivalent of killing a black african.