The extremist militant organization the so-called Islamic State (IS, previously ISIS/ISIL) often uses the recruitment tactic of catfishing, which means hiring Western females specifically those who feel isolated or are exploitable via promises of marriage/romance with a jihadi.
Catfish is basically an online swindler who is fully trained in setting up fake social media IDs and fleecing an individual in a romance scam.
Social media becomes the perfect tool for trapping vulnerable females from around the world. ISIS is well-known for firstly trapping unsuspecting females and arranging their travel to Syria with cash and coaching.
However, this time ISIS is not the one trapping young and vulnerable females but on the other side of the fence. This time ISIS has gotten catfished that too by three gorgeous Chechen girls.
The news is that ISIS recruiters were trying to trap the Chechen females but got busted in the end and the ladies scammed the militants and got $3,000 in return.
Russia’s Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper reports that the females who pulled this scam were just 17 years old.
What Actually Happened?
A few months back one of the women using the first name Maryam or Mary received a message from a stranger on a social network. The individual appeared to be from Syria and after a brief exchange of messages he invited Mary to start a fresh new life with the militants.
Mary made it clear that she is broke and cannot do so. The Syrian sent her some money. After taking the cash, Mary allegedly deleted all her social media profiles and vanished. In similar fashion, two other ISIS members were catfished by three women. The trio used fake photos too to deceive the dangerous militants.
According to Mary, she was actually about to buy a one-way ticket to Syria but she had to reconsider her decision after hearing dreadful stories from her friends from the Muslim community.
Life News reports that not just females but males also have catfished ISIS militants by posing as women and send fake photos in order to receive “travel money.”
Regardless of the gender and the fact that it is thoroughly gratifying to see terrorist groups being scammed and drained out of money, but scamming is nevertheless illegal. Let’s hope that the women manage to evade any reactionary retaliation from the ISIS.
The three Chechen women currently are being investigated for fraud, which if proven can send them to prison for a maximum duration of 6 years.
There’s no doubt that ISIS has a strong presence over the Internet especially on the social media. One can guess the group’s strong social engineering skills by looking at the hit list of 100 U.S. Military Personnel it gathered from the social media and other online sources.
The pro-ISIS hackers, on the other hand, have been hacking high-profile institutions including the BBC and Franch based TV5Monde.
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