In the shadowy world of online fraud, criminals don’t talk about bank cards or addresses. They discuss “squares” and “addys”. This coded vernacular, often learned in school corridors, forms the everyday language of a generation of young scammers, according to investigative journalist Kafui Okpattah.
The lexicon of a scammer
In his new book, Scam Nation: Undercover with the Next Generation of Cyber Fraudsters, Okpattah deciphers this slang. “Squares” refers to bank cards, while “fullz” is a person’s complete financial information. The act of using stolen details to commit crime is “clicking”. An “addy” is a shipping address for fraudulently obtained goods, and a “mule herder” recruits and manages money mules. Even the common term “deets” can be synonymous with “fullz” in this context.
Okpattah, who grew up hearing this jargon, stresses its significance as a warning sign. He advises that a parent should be deeply concerned if they find a child searching for terms like “fullz” or “deets” online. “Why on earth would a 13-year-old be discussing full financial information unless you’re planning on handing yours over or planning on taking someone else’s?” he questions.
Now in his 20s and working for ITN, Okpattah brings a unique perspective to the issue, having witnessed this culture firsthand. Born in Ghana in 2000 and a London resident since 2010, he began his journalism career with the BBC’s specialist investigations unit while at university. His work, which includes being the youngest presenter of BBC’s Panorama in 2021, is informed by his past. “Fraud was part of my life, just by the nature of when I grew up, who I grew up with and where I grew up,” he says. “All of my friends were doing it and discussing it… it was just part and parcel of normal life.”
The scale of the problem he describes is vast. Research indicates that 88% of 13 to 21-year-olds in the UK encountered suspected fraudulent content online in a single year, with 29% becoming victims. In 2023 alone, young people aged 11-29 reported nearly 69,000 cases of fraud to Action Fraud, losing £143.7 million. The crimes are varied, encompassing investment frauds like fake cryptocurrency schemes, online shopping and ticket scams, rental fraud targeting students, and a 52% rise in young identity fraud victims recorded as far back as 2016.
Central to this ecosystem is money muling, where young people are exploited to launder cash. In 2024, over 207,000 personal accounts were used for this purpose, with an estimated 23% of money mules under 21. Okpattah notes that recruiters are often students themselves, embedded in university life. “I’d say in every university year group, there are about 50 fraud boys,” he claims, suggesting they then target peers in their own classes.
The lure for young people is multifaceted. For those with limited means, the promise of what looks like “free money” is powerful, sometimes falsely perceived as a victimless crime. For others, particularly from comfortable backgrounds, the motivation is social status. “It’s more of ‘check me out, I’m being cool,'” Okpattah observes. Social media fuels this, with platforms like TikTok and Instagram acting as hotbeds for recruitment and for fraudsters to flaunt their spoils. One scammer he profiles, described as “basically the Kim Kardashian of fraud”, boasted to 150,000 followers.
The infrastructure for these crimes often leads to the dark web, a hidden part of the internet used to trade stolen data. Furthermore, the National Crime Agency has warned of “Com networks” – online groups of teenage boys sharing extremist material and engaging in fraud on mainstream platforms.
In response, the UK government has launched an expanding Fraud Strategy, and the new Online Safety Act places duties on tech firms to protect users from fraudulent content. The City of London Police is preparing to launch a new “Report Fraud” service in December 2025, while there are pushes to integrate fraud awareness into school curricula. The Financial Conduct Authority has also taken action, having interviewed 20 social media influencers under caution and seen seven sentenced in February 2026 for promoting an unauthorised trading scheme.
