Interview 8
Bossman (pseudonymize) is 27 years and a basic school teacher. Bossman  Parents died and he’s taking care his 4 younger siblings. Bossman has been in the scamming industry for 4 years. Bossman is a leader and has collaboration with other scammers in Nigeria, Cameroon, and USA. Bossman has those working under him at the local level. The interview was conducted at Bossman’s residence. 
Bossman view on illegality and immorality 
Bossman sees illegality as something that is stated in the law as a criminal behavior and immorality to be something that is not good for human beings.  whether it is in one’s religion or not. According to Bossman, immorality is in the human conscience. He explained that as a human being if you are going to do something wrong, you mind can tell you that what you are going to do is wrong and that is immoral. He said sometimes a person might not know about something in his religion but his mind will tell him that what he is going to do is wrong. According to Bossman, immorality is the things  we judge to be wrong in our mind. 
….Well, its very simple to tell the difference between illegal and immoral.. let’s start with illegal.. when something is accorded as illegal, it means that is it in the stated in the Ghana’s constitution.. and if anybody, or let’s say even the president commit those behaviour the law will punish them….of course, I don’t want to mention the corruption part yet hahaha.. I want to focus on the difference.. so like I said, illegal means something that is a criminal behaviour and its punishable by law…Thank you ahha.. but when we say something is immoral, is the God in us… well I mean is the human instincts…these instinct will guide your life toward the good and the bad.. let’s experiment something... before we start, just forget about religion and law…. Alright, do you think raping someone is good?... exactly that means that without the law or religion, our mind will tell you that something is wrong or right..that is the God inside you…So when we talk about immoral, it means something that is bad in the human instincts… sometimes, you might not know sometime something in the bible…I said that because I am a Christian,… lets say you might not say it in the bible yet, but something in your mind tells you that what somebody is doing or what you are doing is wrong. So that is immoral…its too much but I think that is the different……

However, he also believe that most of the things we judge in our minds to be immoral are written in the bible. He gave an example of a case sending someone who trust you into a dangerous place to exemplify immorality. According to him, if somebody trust you and you push them into something dangerous, you mind will tell you that what you did to the person is bad. He believes that immorality is different from illegality. He says that something can be illegal and not immoral and vice versa. To explain, he mentioned that if a person is driving unregistered car, the police will arrest the person because it’s illegal but in your mind driving unregistered car is not wrong so far us you know how to drive. 
Bossman perspective on obeying the laws and the morality
According to Bossman, it’s not necessary to obey the law all the time but its crucial to always obey the sense of morality. According to him, obeying the sense of morality means that you are a good person and that you are obeying God. According to him, the sense of morality in human beings is the God in us, so it is important to obey it all the time.
….I believe in obedience… its important to obey the laws, especially your morality… because you know, morality is the God in us and if you obey your morality, it means that you are doing the work of God and God will reward you in this life and offer you eternal life..I can say that the law and the morality should be equal here, because the law can be wrong.. so we don’t necessary have to obey the law all the time… but for the morality, it’s a must though its difficult to do that all the time….
 In his view the law, can be wrong and you don’t need to obey it all the time. He also noted that though it’s important to obey the sense of morality but it’s always impossible for people to do so because human beings are not angels. He explained that God created angels to be guided aright and human beings to go against their sense of morality sometimes. He explained that because man cannot always obey his sense of morality that is why Jesus came and died for the since of mankind. 
Bossman view on when to disobey the laws and sense of immorality
Bossman mentioned that its ok to disobey the law if you think that law doesn’t make sense or its limiting your development. He believed that there are flaws in the law and if you theme it necessary to bypass the law to achieve your goal then you should do that. However, he believes that it becomes crucial to disobey your sense of morality if its actually necessary to do so because it’s the God in us. 
….For the law, I’ve always say that is the law is right, then they should stop amending the constitution. The law is not always correct.. so for me, if people think that the law is blocking their progress or development in some way, they should go ahead and disobey it…but for morality, it’s very important to stick to it because it’s the God in us. Even though we are not Angel, we should try to always follow our moral sense…. I think breaking the morality is only necessary if you have no other ways of dealing with your condition….God knows this about us and he is ready to forgive us our sins when we call up to him in prayer…..
To exemplify, he used the case of scam. According to him, he scams because it’s the only way he can survive and that God will pardon him because it’s the matter of life and death that he is scamming. He said that, without the scam, he and his brothers will starve, explaining since the death of their parents, he has been the one taking care of this brothers and sister. According to him, without the scam, all of them would have starved to death or would have even become arm robbers.
Bossman opinion on the illegality and immorality of scamming
Bossman believe that scamming is immoral but not illegal. He however, say that scamming should have been illegal.  He explained that it is immoral because they (scammers) are stealing from people. He said, the best way to analyze scam is to think about it and swap positions and imagine if you were the client. According to him, if anybody steal from him, he will feel very bad and hurt and that its immoral because its causing pain to somebody’s life. According to him, scamming is a necessary immoral behavior because without it, worst things could have happen to him and his siblings. 
….for me, scamming is immoral and no argument. But when it comes to illegal, I will simple say that it is not.. lets take the immoral first.. if you want to understand the immoral part in this game, just put yourself in the shoes of the client… if somebody pretend that they love you or they want to do business with you and you trust them, and they just betray you, take your money and leave you without love or money… How will you feel?... of course I will feel bad… that is why my assessment.. so it means that scamming put pain in the client, the client will feel cheated, and misuse. That means that scam is immoral…..
To explain that scamming is not illegal, Bossman mentioned that police officers do not arrest scammers, instead they even like scammers because of the money they (police) get from scammers. He also mentioned that he doesn’t think there’s a law in the constitution that mentioned scam.. According to him, even when a scammer do get arrested, the court label the act as ‘defrauding my false pretends”, which he believes it not the same. According to him, during scamming they don’t pretend to steal from somebody in the country.. they pretend and steal from foreign countries. According to him, if scamming was illegal, Police officers wouldn’t have been part of scamming. To him, something is illegal if its hurting the country and police are arresting people for doing it. 
….there are so many reasons why I said scamming is not illegal.. let’s start by thinking about police attitude.. they don’t arrest scammers instead they respect scammers because of the money scammers give them. Second, some police officers are scammers themselves.. lets talk about the law itself.. I don’t think there’s a law that makes scam illegal because whenever scam issue is in the court, the court will label it as defrauding by false pretends.. Meanwhile, this law should be in the country… Example if you scam somebody in this country, then it can be defrauding by false pretends.. but in scam, the clients are not in this country… the last thing I want to mention is that scam doesn’t affect the country because we don’t steal from the country… we rather help the country ahhaa.. because we take care of our families and it helps reduce the impact of poverty.. We are build houses, businesses, and other things…….
Bossman view on who becomes a client
Bossman said that white people are usually his clients and that he could never scam a black person. According to him, black people don’t have money and that if you want money, you get it from somebody who has money. According to him, white people are rich and likes to help people and that even if a black man is rich, he doesn’t want to help anybody. According to him, scamming is also successful if you meet a client who has a helping heart if not the person will never send you money.
…. My clients are whites.. I will never scam a black person because we black, we don’t money. if you want to steal money because you are in a difficult situation, you steal it from somebody who has it. And you know white people have more money than blacks…also, you know, these whites have helping heart and they can easily fall for our formats. But a black person will not fall for the formats because blacks don’t even like to help each other… hmm even if he’s rich he will not help anyone.. only few people help others… even some of this white people, some times, you meet a client and the person can only offer love and not money… sometimes, it’s just that the person doesn’t have a helping heart or maybe the person doesn’t have money too….
 He explained that some people scam black people but he doesn’t do that. He explain that those who scam black people are making the public to hate scammers. According to him, though a black in America or foreign countries can have money but they (scammers) don’t take them as clients because they will never send money to them (scammers). 
Bossman relationship with clients
According to Bossman, it is natural that when they chat with clients, at some point they develop sympathy and care for the client, especially when the clients is not too rich and willing to help. According to him, white people are willing to sacrifice for their relationship even if they are not rich. He gave a story of a Canadian client he met. According to him, the woman was very kind, supportive, and he was enjoying their conversation and the money. According to him, he felt very bad scamming the woman after knowing that she was fighting a cancer and had less time to live before she dies. According to him, when he got to know about the woman’s condition, he was so sorry and regretted ever scamming that woman. He mentioned that he needed to ask the women to forgive him so he had to tell the woman the truth about his identity and made her understand that it was a scam. According to him, he had to promise the woman that he will pay her back all the money he took from the woman and the woman declined and told him to stop scamming but he could still talk to her.  While, Bossman mentioned that he never could pay the woman all the money he took from the woman. He said that to the woman in order to be forgiven. According to him, he started talking to the woman with his real identity and they had really good time. He said, he wished he could do something to save the woman from dying. According to him, though the woman said he should stop scamming, he cannot stop now because he needs the money to survive.