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From Lagos to Abidjan, from Accra to Cotonou, a parallel economy was structured in the shadow of the screens: it does not produce goods or services, but exploits emotions, hopes and human flaws.
Online scams, long marginal, have become a large social and economic phenomenon. This digital lie industry mobilizes sophisticated technical, linguistic and psychological skills, revealing adaptive intelligence from contexts of scarcity and exclusion.
Behind the sensationalistic narratives, there is a more complex reality: massive youth unemployment, the global digital divide, fascination for rapid success and lack of credible economic prospects. The virtual then becomes a territory of conquest, both illegal, transnational and difficult to control.
This episode analyses the deep springs of this grey digital economy, between diverted genius, social despair and global imbalances, and questions shared responsibilities — local and international — the emergence of this phenomenon.
