Forced labour in cybercrime might call to mind scam compounds in south-east Asia. A growing body of scholarship, journalism and policy attention has entrenched that stereotype. Images of fortified compounds, armed guards and confiscated passports are shaping how courts worldwide interpret cybercriminal participation.
But new research challenges that template. There are different kinds of coercion.
Physical coercion is visible: locked doors, armed guards, confiscated documents. Spiritual or psychological coercion is invisible: the fear of consequences no one can see, but many believe. One restrains the body. The other restrains the mind. The outcome is the same.
I have studied the sociocultural dimensions of cybercrime for over a decade, with particular expertise in online fraud, digital deception, cybercriminal networks, human trafficking and the experiences of fraud victims.
In my most recent work as a cybercrime researcher I looked at a cybercrime training academy in Nigeria, one of the underground schools that recruit and train young men in digital fraud. In a recent study on coercion I show how control, pressure and exploitation can operate within these illicit training spaces.
For the research I drew on three sources: conviction case files (court judgments, charge sheets, witness statements, exhibits); conversations with three officers directly involved in the investigation and prosecution; and courtroom observations of all 12 defendants’ proceedings.
I found that west African cybercrime is not always a free choice.
Understanding what drives recruitment into cybercrime academies is not a defence of fraud, which does great harm. It is a precondition for dismantling it.
What is a hustle kingdom?
Internet fraudsters use the term “hustle kingdoms” to describe their own illicit schools. Our analysis of Nigerian conviction case files, supplemented by ethnographic research and officer interviews, revealed that hustle kingdoms are semi-structured cybercrime academies, operating covertly in Nigerian and Ghanaian cities. They have hierarchies, curricula, and a governing authority known as the “chairman”. Learners are trained in hacking, romance fraud and business email compromise schemes. No upfront fees are charged. Instead, a percentage of scam earnings is extracted later, creating a debt-like arrangement from day one.
Recruits are typically young men aged 16 to 32, most with only secondary education. They enter through social networks, via friends, relatives, or opportunistic recruiters. One 18-year-old explained simply:
I did not pay any money to join the academy.
These academies did not emerge randomly. When formal routes to education and employment are blocked, young people seek alternatives. A sociologist, Robert K. Merton, calls this “innovation”: pursuing culturally endorsed goals, such as financial success, through illegitimate but accessible means.
Hustle kingdoms exploit that gap deliberately, offering free training where universities charge fees that most families cannot afford. Poverty, youth unemployment, and absent social welfare systems are the soil in which these schools grow.
Coercion without chains
These findings come from my analysis of 12 Economic and Financial Crimes Commission case files, specifically witness statements and court testimony in Nigeria. Hustle kingdom learners were not locked up, yet they could not leave. Movement was restricted to narrow, authorised purposes. Communication with the outside world was banned. Food was provided, but money and information about earnings were withheld. One 25-year-old recalled being told that food was free, calls were not permitted, and his percentage would only be disclosed after money was collected.
An 18-year-old learner is recorded in the case files as saying:
We were warned not to leave or contact anyone during the training. The chairman swore that both the person and their family would suffer lasting spiritual harm.
This is layered control, not visible captivity. Each mechanism reinforces the others. Isolation prevents learners from verifying whether threats are real. Financial dependency removes the practical means to exit. Spiritual intimidation seals the architecture.
The spiritual threats centred on juju, a traditional west African practice with deep roots in healing and community life. Within the hustle kingdom, however, it was deliberately weaponised.
The chairman invoked juju oaths to bind learners to compliance. Because belief in ancestral spiritual power is widely shared, these threats carry genuine coercive weight. Scholars describe this as “escapelessness”: the belief that nobody evades spiritual consequence. Similar dynamics have been documented in Nigerian sex-trafficking networks operating across Europe, including Italy and France.
Policy and justice implications
Comparing the case file evidence against existing frameworks on trafficking and coercion, we identified four areas where current responses fall short. Current criminal justice frameworks tend to draw a binary: either someone is a voluntary offender, or a trafficked victim. The hustle kingdom evidence does not fit neatly into either box. Learners entered with aspirations. They also faced escalating constraints that restricted exit, communication and economic autonomy. Participation shifted along a continuum, from initial aspiration toward gradual entrapment.
Treating individuals as fully voluntary offenders carries real costs. Sentences may be disproportionate to the actual agency. Victim-offender overlap goes unrecognised. Rehabilitation programmes designed for willing offenders miss the mark entirely. They assume the participant chose freely. A learner who entered under spiritual threat, financial dependency and restricted movement has a fundamentally different profile. The programme addresses the wrong problem.
The evidence supports more differentiated responses to cybercrime participation across west Africa:
Sentencing: Judges should weigh evidence of movement restrictions, communication bans and spiritual threats when assessing culpability, not dismiss them as cultural colour.
Rehabilitation: Practitioners must learn to identify coerced participants at the assessment stage. Spiritual intimidation is a real constraint on agency.
Prevention: Effective intervention must address structural drivers, including youth unemployment, blocked educational access, and the absence of social safety nets.
Law enforcement: Property owners who lease premises to cybercrime academies without due diligence are indirect enablers. Legislation should extend accountability beyond direct participants.
Why this matters now
Cybercrime is one of Africa’s most rapidly expanding criminal threats, generating estimated annual losses of US$3 billion continent-wide. Similarly, cybercrime enforcement is accelerating across Africa south of the Sahara. Classification decisions made today will harden into judicial precedent. If coercion is only recognised when it looks like a south-east Asian scam compound, constrained actors across west Africa will be sentenced as if they had chosen freely.
Understanding it better could make sentencing proportionate and rehabilitation effective. The structural conditions that feed recruitment into these academies also need to be addressed.
Dr Suleman Lazarus is affiliated with the Police Foundation. This article was written in an independent academic capacity and does not represent the views of the author's institutional affiliations.
