Under a sweltering Lagos bridge, Akinjobi Kamal mixes sand and cement, his palms hardened, his clothes caked in dust. To strangers, he is just another labourer. Few would guess he once swept into nightclubs in a convoy of Mercedes-Benz cars, hailed as a “big boy” of Nigeria’s cybercrime underworld.

Kamal’s rise began as a student of Olabisi Onabanjo University in Ogun State. Pressured by campus cult groups and dazzled by classmates who flaunted cars, cash and women, he drifted from petty online scams into full-blown “Yahoo” fraud. Lectures gave way to late nights in clubs from Ago-Iwoye to Ikeja and Lagos Island, where millions of naira were blown in a single outing to prove status.

Behind the champagne and social media posts, however, was a life of fear and debt. Kamal recalls selling two of his three Mercedes-Benz cars just to keep up appearances. When the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the police closed in, he says he paid tens of millions of naira in bribes to avoid prison. Eventually, the money dried up. Friends vanished. A club seized his Lexus over unpaid bills. He ended up on a bare mattress, stripped of wealth and dignity.

His story is echoed on campuses across Nigeria. In Owerri, former Federal University of Technology student Chinonso Nwabueze watched his 4.11 CGPA collapse after he joined friends in “bombing” – impersonating foreign women on Instagram to lure victims. Nights were spent in hotels and clubs, days in a haze of sleep deprivation and failed rituals said to “fortify” their scams. He left the trade with no real earnings and a downgraded degree.

For some, the lure is not luxury but survival. At the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Kelechi Ikenna turned to cybercrime to fund his diabetic father’s dialysis. Twice-weekly hospital bills of N100,000 left him feeling he had no choice. The money came, but peace did not. He speaks of insomnia, depression and a constant sense that time and purpose are slipping away.

Experts warn that this double life – curated online glamour masking inner chaos – is fuelling anxiety, identity crises and social decay. Psychotherapists describe chronic hypervigilance and emotional isolation. Sociologists link the craze to unemployment, inequality and peer pressure, warning that trust within communities is eroding.

Law enforcement officials say the stakes are rising. The EFCC reports that some internet fraudsters now branch into kidnapping, banditry and money laundering for corrupt politicians when online scams falter, deepening insecurity and staining Nigeria’s global reputation.

For Kamal, now earning a modest wage on construction sites, the verdict is stark. He calls his years in Yahoo “a waste of my youth, my education and my future” – a shortcut that led only to ruin.