Hello and welcome to Meet the Writers, I'm Georgina Godwin.
Today's guest grew up in Madrid, the youngest of three brothers, raised by a single mother
who always found money for two things above all else, books and travel.
He went on to become a reporter, first in Spanish papers, later for the New York Times,
and somewhere in that career, his own family became the story.
In December 2015, his mother announced at Sunday lunch that she'd met someone.
A divorced American soldier that she came across online.
His name is Brian, but it was a scam.
And four years on, our author flew to Lagos to try and find the man who'd been scamming his mother.
Well, he never located him, but he did spend six months in Nigeria
and sat in on the work of the young men known as Yahoo Boys.
The book follows four of them through a world built on loneliness on both ends of the screen
and a history that stretches back long before the internet existed.
Carlos Bargan, welcome to Meet the Writers.
Thank you so much.
It's lovely to have you here.
This book is absolutely fascinating.
I'm going to get you to tell the story.
It's extraordinary.
First of all, you grew up in Madrid with your mother and your two brothers.