San Francisco, USA — Mr. Emmanuel Adinkrah, President of the Ghana Internet Safety Foundation (GISF), Founder of the Trust and Safety Africa Academy, and a member of the Trust and Safety Professional Association (TSPA), delivered a powerful presentation at TrustCon2025, the world’s leading conference on digital trust and safety, held from July 21–23 in San Francisco, USA.
Mr. Adinkrah’s session shed global light on one of Africa’s most underreported digital crises — the alarming rise in financial sextortion, and its disturbing connection to ritualistic and occultic subcultures among youth across West Africa.
Speaking to a diverse audience of platform leaders, researchers, policy stakeholders, and digital safety professionals, Mr. Adinkrah unveiled how economic desperation, online manipulation, and harmful belief systems are converging to create a high-risk environment for young Africans.
“In parts of Africa, digital crimes like sextortion are no longer just crimes of opportunity. They’ve become a subculture — a ‘hustle economy’ powered by ritual promises and dark digital myths,” Mr. Adinkrah stated.
“If the global trust and safety community continues to overlook these realities, we risk designing solutions that don’t work for half the world.”
Drawing on evidence from GISF’s field research and community-level interventions, Mr. Adinkrah dissected how terms like ‘Yahoo Boys’ in Nigeria and ‘Sakawa Boys’ in Ghana represent not just cybercriminals, but youth trapped in a system that glorifies digital fraud and spiritual manipulation as the path to wealth and social status.
He called for an urgent response that includes:
• Culturally grounded safety education
• AI-supported detection of emerging sextortion patterns
• Mental health support and exit pathways for at-risk youth
• Greater global funding to African-led safety innovation
While not the only African voice at the conference, Mr. Adinkrah’s presentation stood out for its boldness, originality, and cultural specificity, prompting dialogue on how digital safety frameworks must evolve to include subcultural and spiritual dynamics unique to certain regions.
His remarks were met with overwhelming applause, as attendees expressed admiration for the courage to name uncomfortable truths and connect the dots between online harm, cultural pressures, and economic exploitation.
TrustCon2025 proved that Africa is not only impacted by digital threats — it is rich with context, insights, and leadership that the global trust and safety community must urgently recognize.
As Mr. Gabriel Ofori Appiah, Director of Awareness and Outreach at GISF, noted at the end of the event:
“This is more than a technical fight — it’s a cultural one. And if we do not speak to the belief systems that fuel online crimes, we will never truly protect our youth or dismantle the digital exploitation economy.”
About TrustCon:
Organized annually by the Trust and Safety Professional Association (TSPA), TrustCon is the premier global gathering of trust and safety professionals working to build safer, more inclusive digital platforms.
TrustCon2025 brought together over 1,000 participants from technology companies, academia, civil society, and government to exchange knowledge, share strategies, and shape the future of digital safety and platform integrity.
