Global Scams: Nigerian Scam 2.0: Now With AI and Venture Capital
- Mitt Chen
- Aug 16
- 3 min read
The WTF Truth
Welcome to the next version of Nigerian prince emails. Only now - the prince has a Delaware C-Corp, a fake OpenAI partnership, and a pitch deck that would make Sequoia sweat. The 419 scam didn’t die. It pivoted into a venture-backed, AI-washed, token-enabled, Figma-polished capital illusion. And the best part? It’s working, because LPs have stopped asking questions when the hype graph goes vertical.
Data Meets Drama
Let’s pull some receipts, and no, not the type you get from Notion screenshots.
1. African Tech Funding Has Spiked — and Fragmented
In 2023, Nigeria led Africa’s startup funding with $1.2B in disclosed deals. (Source: Partech Africa Report 2023)
2. Scam Volume Is Climbing in Parallel
INTERPOL flagged $550M+ in digital asset and “startup investment” fraud tied to West African IPs in 2024. (Source: INTERPOL Cybercrime Unit)
3. ScamTech Has Gone Corporate
In the last 18 months, at least 6 Nigerian-based “AI startups” raised over $20M+ — then disappeared. Their models?
Ghost whitepapers
Fake GitHub commits
Token “airdrop” ecosystems that redirect to Telegram shell groups
4. And It’s Not Just Local Money
LPs from Singapore, Dubai, and Florida family offices were among the backers. At least two syndicates were spun through legit AngelList SPVs.
So yes, this isn’t just a fraud. It’s a SaaSified scam funnel with CRM and seed extensions. 🧾💸
Operator Behavior Case: The Lagos LLM Play
Here’s the case file: One “AI-for-Africa” startup, registered in Delaware, pitch deck with GPT buzzwords and a problem slide that says “98% of Nigerians lack access to culturally relevant large language models.”
They raised:
$1.5M seed
$2.7M bridge
$4.1M Series A “led” by a fund that no longer exists
All wired to a UK LTD. The dev team? Fake. Their LinkedIns were Midjourney portraits. The tokenomics? Auto-generated on a Solana clone with 48-hour vesting cliffs. Their “MVP”? A ChatGPT API wrapper with Yoruba translations and a knockoff Duolingo interface. They hosted one Twitter Space. Then.. poof. Wallet drained. Telegram wiped. Website redirected to a Zara clone. They raised a microfund. Then a mega-void.
Mitt’s View
You thought the AI bubble was safe? You thought Lagos wouldn’t figure out how to exploit FOMO capital? This isn’t fraud. It’s frictionless global fundraising through the lens of geopolitical karma.
Because if you’ll wire $100K to a stranger with a Stripe account and a Loom demo, you deserve a little chaos in return. And let’s be real: “He flies private but won’t pay legal fees.” “She pitched an AI fund on stage, then minted a rug on-chain.” That’s not weird anymore. That’s Series Seed standard. What they figured out in Lagos is what SF forgot: VCs don’t invest in diligence. They invest in narrative scale. And when the vibe is “Africa + AI + impact + token” – well, good luck not wiring something.
🔐 The Vault View
One Vault contributor, a security researcher in London, traced 13 fake “AI startups” in the past year operating with real Delaware paperwork and dummy dev teams. His favorite quote: “They cloned YC copy, injected OpenAI buzzwords, and sold equity via WhatsApp. It was the most advanced fraud funnel I’ve ever seen — and I used to work at Facebook.” Here’s what the typical scam stack looks like:
Scam Layer | Tool Used | Signal to Watch |
Pitch Deck | AI/Canva | Global TAM slides w/ no tech depth |
Dev Team | Fake LinkedIns, Midjourney photos | No GitHub or verifiable commits |
Tokenomics | Generic whitepaper, cloned smart contract | 48-hour vesting, zero liquidity plan |
Fundraising | AngelList SPVs, Telegram groups | Rapid oversubscription + "closing today" urgency |
Disappearance | DNS redirect, Telegram wipe | No KYC, no recourse |
🔓 Get the full playbook → https://mittchen.com/vault
Scam as a Service (SaaS)
This isn’t the old 419 letter. This is the SaaSification of digital fraud: scalable, repeatable, fundable. They’ve got copy-paste pitch decks. AI-generated code snippets. Even fake “TechCrunch” logos in media kits. And the exits? Not IPO. Just vanishing, with a little Cayman shell at the end.
LPs Are the Real Product
You think you’re backing frontier innovation? You’re just feeding a smarter funnel. The scam doesn't need scale. It just needs you to believe the next Stripe of Africa is one warm DM away. And if you still think “impact” means “due diligence,” you’re already behind the curve.
The New 419 Model
It’s not email spam. It’s Deck + Token + Airdrop + Ghost.
Old Scam | New Scam |
“I’m a prince…” | “We’re the ChatGPT for Africa.” |
Money transfer | AngelList SPV |
Western Union | USDT |
Gmail | Discord / Twitter / Telegram |
Spellcheck fails | GPT-polished decks with "inclusive AI" positioning |
They’ve upgraded. The question is: Have you?
You wanted exposure to frontier markets? You got it, just not the kind you can write off. Because the next “AI founder” you meet in a $7,000 suit with a Cayman wallet? He might be the new unicorn. Or he might be sending your capital into deep web purgatory. And either way.. He already cashed the wire. 🥂
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