Video Transcript

This threat when you look at it broadly, it's ruthless. And it's relentless. It doesn't care. It doesn't respect our borders. It doesn't respect the law, our international protocols. Right. It doesn't understand or take that in at all. In order to address such a broad threat—you know, a threat that is coming from all angles—you can't do that by yourself. I can't do that sitting in this desk in Lagos. I can't do that sitting at a as a case agent in United States.

I need international partners to get a full scope and understanding of exactly what's going on with these people, the scope of the crime, the subjects of the crime, and how they're impacting communities worldwide. And I won’t understand that without working with our five eye partners, the Australians and the Canadians and the U.K . as well. And also—and especially in this case—the Nigerian EFCC has been fundamental and understanding who these people are and what they're doing.

The beauty of an operation like this is we're actually addressing this threat head on in a broad way. We're bringing in all our partners, it's full team work effort worldwide.

I've interviewed several of these subjects, and these subjects do not take into account that there's a person on the other side of that conversation.

They're just looking for easy money. They think this this person is very wealthy. They have—they misunderstand who these people are and they, unfortunately, they attack them after that. So when they become not real, they're easy to attack and treat poorly. And these types of things, of course, if you're the one on the other end of that conversation and you're facing exposure to all your friends and family, it's a very different situation and a very different reality.

So I think that the community, the way they can disengage from the victim is a way for them to sort of justify their activities. It's sort of a mechanism to shield them from the real harm they're doing. And calling it a game is just a way for them to hide, just for them to not face actually what they're doing.