Nigeria cracks down on e-mail scams

But not if Nigerian authorities have their way. A new Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is targeting "not just the scammer, but the ring around him," says Osita Nwajah, a spokesman. This includes banks, owners of cyber cafés, even café-building landlords. Eventually, "Everyone will become a sort of cyber-guard" to prevent e-mail crime, he says, perhaps optimistically.

The EFCC also prosecutes swindlers - and repays victims. It locked up crooks who swindled $242 million from a Brazilian bank - and have repaid the bank an initial $17 million. "We are getting them to vomit what they've swallowed," says Mr. Nwajah. The EFCC also recently repaid an elderly Hong Kong victim $4.4 million.

The efforts appear to be having some deterrent effect. "People are scared now," says Sonny.

But the larger issue is societal: Why do so many bright young Nigerian men pour such creativity and initiative into this type of criminality?

In a country with high unemployment, few computer firms, and many technical schools that teach computer skills, there are few other options, explains Chris Ola, head of the national police fraud squad.

There's no social safety net and so much corruption that "You can't actualize" - become financially secure - "by working within the system," he explains. "Even straight people end up going wrong." When yahoo-yahoos graduate from school, they can't get a real job - and dream of going to America for one. "They're smart, so they have to do something to survive," Mr. Ola says. That's why, "In any cyber café, you see people plotting their way out of Nigeria."

Is corruption really being curtailed in one of the world's most graft-ridden nations? Consider:

• A powerful governor of an oil-rich state is speedily impeached, arrested, and faces extradition to Britain on money-laundering charges.

• The federal police department's inspector general is convicted and fined $30,000 for corruption, including accepting kickbacks - and jailed for six months.

• In 2005, Nigeria moved to the sixth-most-corrupt nation spot in Transparency International's corruption-perceptions index, from second-most corrupt in 2004.

Indeed, Nigeria is in the midst of an anti-corruption campaign, powered mostly by the country's tough-talking president, Olesegun Obasanjo. In a nation where nearly all politicians are assumed to be corrupt, critics say he's using graft-busting as a way to pick off his political enemies. Yet there's a growing sense here that graft is on the agenda in a new way.

Most important, the powerful governors of the country's 39 states felt the pinch when one of their own was impeached and arrested. It's the first time a governor has been impeached in many years. Governors are used to hiding behind constitutional immunity from prosecution. "But they're all scared now, because they're all in the same business," says Annette Edo, a political reporter for Newswatch, a Lagos newspaper.

It started in September, when Gov. Diepreye Alamieyeseigha was arrested by British authorities, who found about $3 million in his London home and charged him with money laundering. He was let out on bail - and escaped the country, reportedly dressed in women's clothes, using a fake passport. But the ensuing uproar led to his impeachment and arrest.

Mr. Alamieyeseigha is allied with the vice president, who is in a very-public power struggle with the president. Critics say Alamieyeseigha's woes are a symbol of political games at the top. But others argue his arrest sends an entirely different signal. "No matter how big you are," says anti-corruption commission spokesman Osita Nwajah, "the law will catch you."

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