Posts claiming Nigerian ‘Yahoo boy' scammed Trump out of $250k are misleading
'Yahoo' is Nigerian slang for internet fraud.
Shared more than 3,000 times, the post was published by an account called 'Shola', a self-proclaimed life coach with over 373,000 followers.
Comments under the post suggest that some readers believe it is genuine.
'If these guys get the chance, they'll scam God,' one commenter wrote.
'Scammed a whole Donald Trump? Bro playing fraud on Hall of Fame difficulty,' added another user.
The claim was also shared elsewhere on X (here and here) and on Facebook in English (here) and French (here).
The Economic and Financial Crime Commission reported in May that cybercrime, advance fee fraud and money laundering accounted for the highest number of offences out of the record-breaking 4,111 total convictions by the agency in 2024 — in a country where 70% of the population is under the age of 30 (archived here and here).
Several high-profile cyber-fraud cases have been linked to Nigerians outside the country.
Nigerian Instagram influencer Ramon Olorunwa Abbas was handed an 11-year jail term in the United States in 2022 after being found guilty of conspiring 'to launder tens of millions of dollars through a series of online scams' (archived here).
Abidemi Rufai, a politician and aide to the Ogun state governor in southwest Nigeria, was also convicted in the US for a similar crime in 2022 (archived here). He was sacked after his crime came to light.
However, the claim that a Nigerian 'Yahoo boy' scammed Trump is misleading.
Official records from the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) confirm that there was a $250,300 cryptocurrency scam, but Donald Trump was not the direct victim (archived here).
The funds were actually fraudulently diverted from a donor intending to support the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee, after scammers impersonated Steve Witkoff, the committee's co-chair and finance director.
Prosecutors filed a complaint in a federal court that fraudsters sent emails from a domain posing as the official inaugural account. The scammers used the address@t47lnaugural.com, with a lowercase 'L' replacing the 'i' in the legitimate @t47inaugural.com, to solicit over $250,000 in USDT.ETH cryptocurrency (archived here).
The victim transferred the funds, which were quickly moved across multiple cryptocurrency wallets, including a Nigeria-based Binance account linked to the name Ehiremen Aigbokhan.
'It appeared likely that Aigbokhan received an international transfer of funds from the U.S. to Nigeria as a result of his fraudulent activity,' prosecutors said in the document.
The suspect allegedly used several crypto wallets and exchanges to launder the money.
The FBI seized a total of 40,353 USDT.ETH that the federal agency said was connected to the fraud, with about half taken from Aigbokhan's accounts. Digital forensics linked him to the Binance account that received part of the stolen funds.
The FBI is now seeking Aigbokhan's arrest.
International media, including The Independent UK and American magazine Fortune, reported on the case (archived here and here).
The story was covered by multiple Nigerian newspapers, some of whose headlines may have created confusion. One titled its article "How Lagos Yahoo Boy duped U.S. President Donald Trump of 2025 inauguration funds" while another used the headline "FBI pursues Lagos Yahoo Boy for defrauding U.S. President Donald Trump of 2025 inauguration funds" before going on to explain in the text that a donor was scammed.
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New York Times
a few seconds ago
- New York Times
Give Trump a Nobel! And an Emmy. And an Oscar …
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Epoch Times
a few seconds ago
- Epoch Times
California Legislature to Consider Their Own Redistricting Efforts
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Time Magazine
3 minutes ago
- Time Magazine
Why Israel—And Trump—Should Support Palestinian Statehood
Several states, including the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia have announced that they will follow France's Emmanuel Macron, in recognizing a Palestinian state during the United Nations General Assembly session next month. This development represents a meaningful shift that could help create new momentum toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while undercutting the ideology of violent resistance espoused by Hamas and other jihadist organizations. More major Western actors should join the move to recognize a Palestinian state. Of course, the vision of two states living side by side is not new. In 1947, the United Nations voted to establish two states for two peoples—one Jewish, one Arab—subject to a list of conditions. Arab leaders rejected the partition plan, while Israel was founded shortly thereafter. To-date, 147 UN member states out of 193 have recognized Palestine, with 114 maintaining full diplomatic relations with the Palestinian Authority. Yet most leading Western democracies have withheld recognition until recently, despite publicly supporting a two-state solution. The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), the internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people, acknowledged Israel's right to exist as far back as 1988—an acknowledgment reaffirmed during the Oslo process and embedded in the Arab Peace Initiative. In contrast, Israel has never recognized a Palestinian state, not even during negotiations ostensibly aimed at achieving that outcome. It is this imbalance that the move initiated by France, which the Israeli government opposes, begins to address. The diplomatic momentum created by major Western nations could serve as a tipping point. It would place them at the forefront of a global consensus already reflected in UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, the Oslo Accords, the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 and President Donald Trump's 2020 Middle East peace plan. Regrettably, the Trump Administration has dismissed these nations' statements. As patriotic Israelis, we believe that a two-state-for-two-people solution remains the only viable path to peace and long-term security for both Israelis and Palestinians. Instead of a knee-jerk rejection of France's diplomatic initiative, Israel should better use it and subsequent announcements to its advantage to bolster Israel's national security and international standing. We welcome the growing international recognition for several reasons. First, it sends a powerful message to extremists on both sides: maximalist visions of exclusive sovereignty over the entire land are not legitimate and will not be endorsed by the international community. Second, the recognition provides a constructive ideological counterweight to Hamas and other jihadist organizations. Military action alone cannot defeat extremism; it must be paired with a credible, alternative political vision. Recognizing Palestine as a state presents a peaceful and realistic pathway that undermines the narrative of violent resistance and gives hope to Palestinians seeking a diplomatic solution. As such, an alternative becomes a reality, it cannot help but strengthen the moderate forces within the Palestinian society, marginalize the extremists, and increase security. At the same time, Israel should maintain responsibility for its own security and continue its struggle against Hamas and other Jihadist groups. Third, Palestinian statehood recognition has implications for future negotiations—particularly on the contentious issue of Palestinian refugees. A recognized Palestinian state provides a clear solution for the absorption and rehabilitation of refugees, helping resolve one of the most complex and emotional aspects of the conflict. Fourth, this front-loaded recognition can lead to the establishment of a clear border between Israelis and Palestinians, which could enhance security in the respective states. Once this border is delineated, national self-determination within agreed borders would carry with it the responsibility to reduce violence. Fifth, spoilers such as terrorism, violence, settlement expansion, reciprocal delegitimization, have all had the upper hand in the last decade-and-a-half, absent negotiations. Following the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre and the ensuing Gaza war, respective narratives moved farther away from one another. Beginning future talks with the mutual recognition of Palestinian statehood would help narrow the gaps and build more resilient negotiations. Finally, the fact that Saudi Arabia joined France in calling on countries at the United Nations to support a declaration that outlines "tangible, timebound, and irreversible steps" towards implementing a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians adds another layer of strategic importance. It complicates the already expressed opposition from President Trump, because of the U.S. geopolitical interests in Riyadh. In addition, it reinforces the framework of the Arab Peace Initiative, first introduced by the Saudis, which envisions a comprehensive regional peace. This framework is vital for the future of Gaza, which together with the West Bank will form the Palestinian State, particularly for Gaza's post-war reconstruction and humanitarian recovery, and the release of hostages. And regionally, without a credible path to Palestinian statehood, there will be no normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and the region will remain volatile. The peace process to date has been hampered by ambiguity about its ultimate goal: two states for two peoples. The outcome of a secure Jewish-democratic Israel and a functioning, though demilitarized, Palestinian state, should be clearly enunciated, and it should be implemented through a gradual, performance-benchmarked process. The recognition of Palestine, joined by other major Western actors, could mark a turning point in offering a constructive roadmap for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It would help transition from a conflict-management approach, which has brought pain and suffering to both peoples, to conflict resolution. If embraced and expanded by other international actors, this move could prompt a reinvigorated global effort to shape a new reality of coexistence, peace, and security in the Middle East. President Trump should not only drop his opposition to this move; he should assume leadership of it.
