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Girls Catfish ISIS On Social Media For Travel Money

Posted by samzenpus on from the this-message-may-come-as-a-shock-to-you dept.

MarkWhittington writes: Yahoo Travel reported that three women in Chechnya took ISIS for $3,300 before getting caught. They are now under investigation for Internet fraud, which seems to be illegal even when committed against the most fearsome terrorist army in modern times. The scam seems to be a combination of the Nigerian Prince con, in which a mark is fooled into giving the con artist large sums of money and catfishing, in which the mark strikes up an online romance with someone he thinks is an attractive woman (or man depending on the gender and preference of the mark.)

5 of 238 comments (clear)

  1. Why is that illegal? by SuperKendall · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If the intelligence agencies were smart, they would offer to match anything you were able to con out of known terrorist groups. The scam artists of the world would de-fund ISIS in about a year, all without firing a shot.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Why is that illegal? by zedaroca · · Score: 5, Informative

      The scam artists of the world would de-fund ISIS in about a year

      You forgot who is financing ISIS.
      According to the vice-president (and a lot of other more credible places), it's the US allies, that their funds from the US.
      The clip with Joe Biden
      News about him apologizing for telling them out
      Old Wikileaks leak about them financing anyone available to fight against Assad, and being interested in a big humanitarian disaster. Quotes from the e-mail:

      One Air Force intel guy (US) said very carefully that there isn't much of a Free Syrian Army to train right now anyway

      the idea 'hypothetically' is to commit guerrilla attacks, assassination campaigns, try to break the back of the Alawite forces, elicit collapse from within

      They dont believe air intervention would happen unless there was enough media attention on a massacre, like the Ghadafi move against Benghazi. They think the US would have a high tolerance for killings as long as it doesn't reach that very public stage.

  2. It ought to be legal to scam ISIS by rahvin112 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If it was legal to scam them they would be flooded with offers from so many girls it would either bankrupt them or they would stop recruiting because of all the scams. It would seriously disrupt their recruiting.

    It's just like banning people from joining them. We should be lining those people up and flying them over there right after they sign papers saying they aren't citizens anymore. Let them go, fight and die as long as they never return. They won't be in our country anymore. And on the flip side it should be perfectly legal to scam them. They are a criminal organization and I personally like the old world idea that someone that's breaking the law and fighting prosecution is then outside the law including it's protections. There aren't innocents in groups like ISIS, everyone should be free to target them with any action that would normally be deemed criminal.

  3. Re:They should legalize fraud against terrorists by ThatAblaze · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Man, I want to live in your world! Imagine if everyone legalized anything that was hilarious. I'd go around planting drugs on the police, and if I got caught my defense would be "sorry judge, it was just too hilarious to stop!"

  4. Re:Catfish by Sqr(twg) · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes, verbing wierds language, as Watterson wrote, but on the other hand; What word do you propose we use to mean "to swindle by assuming a false identity online"?

    Language evolves as new words are needed, and just because a word is already a noun, there's no rule saying it can't become a verb. (To "fish" is a verb.)