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NATE HALIV: HOW TO GET AWAY WITH FRAUD (THE NIGERIAN PRINCE)

For Fatoba Oluwaseyi, I wish you were here to see our childhood dreams come true. I hope
you find peace and light wherever you are.

For TEOP, thank you for illuminating my path.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the
author’s imagination or, if real, used factiously. All statements, activities, stunts, descriptions,
information, and material of any other kind contained herein are included for entertainment
purposes only and should not be relied on for accuracy or replicated as they may result in
arrest.

© 2021 Nate Haliv

For inquiries: [email protected]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an
information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the
author.

ISBN: 979-8740553054

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 NATE HALIV: HOW TO GET AWAY WITH FRAUD (THE NIGERIAN PRINCE)

PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE

Just like every other country in the world, Nigeria has two sides. In particular parts of
Nigeria (particularly Abuja, the island parts of Lagos, and the residential areas in Port-
Harcourt), you will meet people from different countries; Europeans who own oil companies,
Asian businesspeople, Indians, and Arabs. In these places, you will see luxury cars, beautiful
apartments, and influential people.

The problem is that Nigeria has over 200 million people, and out of those 200 million
people, less than one million people live in beautiful neighborhoods. 99% of the population
lived in places that Europeans refer to as ghettos. In these neighborhoods, crime, poverty, and
gruesome deaths were prevalent. These neighborhoods are filled with poor, hungry, and
middle-class people, and the majority of the Nigerian population lives in such areas.

I was born in Nigeria to a middle-class family. It was not precisely a middle-class family
by the American standard. However, once you have a car and a house in Nigeria, you are pretty
much in the middle class because there are millions of homeless and impoverished people in
the country. More than 65% of the national population earns below $3,000 yearly.

My family is not among the upper class because only 1% of the country’s population
of 200 million people belongs to the upper class. The members of the upper class in Nigeria
are either politicians, businesspeople, or oilfield owners.

The majority of these upper-class members are tax evaders. In Nigeria, all you need to
do is bribe the right people, and you may not have to pay taxes for a decade. Even when the
Federal Internal Revenue Service (FIRS) starts probing you, all you need to do is to give $1,000
to the right person, and no one will bother you anymore.

My family cannot be considered members of the lower class either because more than
20 million people in Nigeria are either unemployed or homeless. More than 20 million
Nigerians survive on less than $5 daily.

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Poverty is incredibly high in the northern part of Nigeria, where the majority of the men
living in the region practice polygamy. In the northern part of Nigeria, you will find men
earning less than $40 in a month with four wives and more than a dozen children. I find this
ridiculous because why would a poor and jobless family have more than ten children? Even
Jeff Bezos does not have up to twelve kids. Yet, a northern Nigerian farmer who does not have
up to $100 in his bank account would not consider himself fulfilled in life until he has many
children because he needs male children to continue his legacy.

I was lucky enough to be born into a family of two civil servants. My dad owned a tiny
unpainted bungalow in a rough neighborhood, and he owned an outdated Toyota Corolla sedan.
As a child, I lost count of the number of times my father’s car broke down in the middle of a
road trip.

While driving to church on Sundays, my siblings and I had to push my father’s car for
half of the entire journey because the car constantly broke down. In America, such a car would
have been recycled, but the car was as precious as gold to my father. Like people say, half a
loaf is better than none. The rickety car distinguished us because most of our neighbors did not
own any vehicle.

The distance from our house to the church could be covered within 20 minutes, but we
always spent one hour driving my father’s Corolla to church because the car constantly broke
down several times. I once suggested to my father that he got rid of his car and let us walk to
church every Sunday instead. He yelled at me that night and said that I was ungrateful. He told
me that many people in the country could not even afford to buy a bicycle. He was right, and
there were many Nigerians who could not afford to buy bikes. Nothing pleased African parents
more than driving to church in their cars every Sunday and showing off their new clothes.

My parents earned the national minimum wage. In Nigeria, wages are not calculated by
the hours spent working, and you only get paid when you work for an entire month. You must
work from 8 am to 4 pm every day to get your total monthly salary. This means that you must
work for 160 hours every month to earn your full salary. Before I left Nigeria, the national
minimum wage was around 18 thousand naira (we spend naira in Nigeria), $46. Imagine
working for 160 hours in a month just to earn $46. In America, some people make that amount
of money working for just two hours.

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My parents had four kids, and I watched two of them die. My elder brother died of
tuberculosis when he was only six years old. One of my younger sisters died of malaria because
we could not afford to pay for her treatment. During that period, we had no functional national
health insurance scheme in the country. If you were sick and could not pay for your treatment,
no doctor would treat you, and you would eventually die. In Nigeria, even if you are bleeding
to death, no doctor will treat you until you pay your full bills. The rule is simple: payment first,
treatment afterward. It does not matter if it is an emergency. You need to pay your bills before
anyone attends to you.

Here in America, there is a functional health insurance scheme, and you even have
access to credit cards just in case you need money urgently. In Nigeria, less than one percent
of the entire population has access to credit cards. You are practically doomed when you do
not have any money in your account and none of your friends are willing to lend you money.

I watched two of my siblings die because we lacked money and a quality health care
system in our country. I watched my parents work for 160 hours every month just to earn $46.
Poverty is different in African countries than it is in America. At least in America, poor people
have access to food stamps and other unemployment benefits, but in Nigeria, the government
does not do anything to help poor people. We lack a functional welfare system in the country.
More people die of poverty in African countries than of malaria.

I was determined to escape from poverty. I became interested in making money when
I was a child. My math skills were perfect because I solved basic problems at the age of three
by calculating money. For example, to calculate 10+50, I would imagine adding ten naira and
fifty naira together. At age seven, I could work on quadratic equations better than many 8th
grade students.

All my teachers liked me. They recognized my intelligence at an early age. My father
used to tell me jokingly, “I sabi say you go use that your big brain bring money come.”
(Nigerian Pidgin English sentence, which means, I know that your intelligence will help you
earn money in the future).

It turned out that my father was right. Before my initial arrest for cyber fraud, I had
Bitcoin worth $12 million in my Blockchain wallet and $7 million in different offshore bank
accounts. I had a $2 million mansion in Dominica and a $9 million mansion in Monte Carlo.
My intelligence earned me money, as my dad predicted, but it was in an illegal manner.

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I got the chance to move to America when I was nine years old. My mom’s junior sister,
Aunt Moji, had recently gained U.S. citizenship by marriage during that period. She sponsored
my immigrant visa by claiming that I was her son with her former husband in Nigeria. It was
a lie because Aunt Moji was not my birth mother. In Africa, whenever a family member gets
the chance to travel to a better country, they always try to ensure that other family members
also relocate. That was the reason Aunt Moji sponsored my immigrant visa and claimed that I
was her son.

My parents could not stop crying at the airport.

“Ranti omo eni ti o je. Ma kegbekegbe kan kan. Je ki nnkan ti o ni te e lorun,” my

mother whispered to me. (Yoruba sentence which means: Remember your family. Do not join
any bad gang and always be satisfied with the little things that you have).

I think my mom had a hunch about the future. I should have listened to her. I should
not have associated myself with certain people, and I should not have tried living my life
seeking validation from other people. I should have quitted fraud after I made my first million,
but I got greedy. The problem with being rich is that once you start making money, it becomes
hard to stop. The more you earn, the more you want.

Before two of my siblings died, there were six people in my family, and we all survived
on my dad’s $46 monthly salary, but when I started engaging in fraud, I found it hard to live
on $10,000 every month. I became desperate to make more money to fly private jets and go
shopping at luxury malls to impress my classmates and Instagram followers.

I arrived in America on July 8, 2005, and it became a new chapter of my life. We

admired our relatives living in America in Nigeria because we thought they were living in
wealth. Once they took pictures in front of Burger King or at skating rinks, we thought their
lives were perfect, but we did not know that some were suffering just like us or even worse
than those in Africa.

The only difference between our poverty levels is that the American government
supports the poor people in America. Some of them live on food stamps or sell drugs to earn
money, but on Instagram and Facebook, everyone looks happier and more prosperous than they
genuinely are.

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I noticed how my aunt was subjected to a more extensive body search at the airport
compared to other women.

“Are you in possession of anything illegal, ma’am?” a white officer asked her. My aunt
cursed in Yoruba before she replied, “No, sir.”

I stood there staring at the white people with wide eyes. In the town I lived in Nigeria,
we barely saw white people. Most white people who visited or lived in Nigeria were either in
Lagos, Abuja, or Port-Harcourt. None of them visited my small town named Ikare in Ondo
state.

The officers asked me a couple of questions to ensure I was not being trafficked. I
answered all their questions, and they allowed us to leave after a few minutes. My aunt cursed
them in Yoruba once again and ranted about how Muslims and black people were always
treated differently at airports.

“If not for the bad politicians who keep embezzling funds in Nigeria, why else will I
live in a country that treats people like animals because of their skin color?” she ranted in
Yoruba.

I did not understand the concept of skin color that she was ranting about. I was only
nine years old and knew nothing about racism or skin color. In Nigeria, almost everyone has
the same phenotype. No one treats you differently because of your skin color. Also, I used to
think there were just two skin colors in the world: white and black. However, after a few months
in America, I learned that there were several subdivisions of humans.

When we got to my aunt’s house in Detroit, I realized that America was not made of
gold as I assumed. My aunt’s apartment was a tiny rat-infested apartment which we shared
with her husband and two other kids. We were five people living in a very small apartment. On
my first night, I slept on the bare floor and saw two huge rats running around while I tried to
sleep.

I got my first shock the following day when I spent ten minutes taking a shower. My
aunt yelled at me and kept ranting while I wondered what I had done wrong.

“Do you think this is Nigeria? Do you know how much I pay for the water supply every
month? How can you be so wasteful? Do you think water supply is free in this country?” Aunt
Moji yelled.

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It was then that I understood the first rule in America: Nothing is free. You pay for
everything in America. You pay for your electricity consumption, water supply, sewage
disposal, etc.

In Nigeria, you simply burn your sewage in your backyard. Many people have wells in
their houses to fetch water, so they do not have to pay for water supply. There is a constant
electricity supply in America, and you can store your food in the fridge and watch TV whenever
you want. However, in certain places in Nigeria, you might not have electricity for an entire
month or even a year. Why will you pay electricity bills when there is no electricity supply?

After learning that nothing came for free in America, my aunt’s husband, Dave, an
African American, taught me how to behave around police officers.

“As a black person, once a male police officer stops you, the first thing you should do
is to show him your hands. Never resist or move your body in an aggressive manner. Always
appear pitiful because white police officers love it when black people fear them. Don’t talk to
them in an aggressive or cocky manner. You should always add ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’ at the end of
every sentence when talking to cops,” Dave advised me.

Within one week, I had learned two vital lessons about America. One of them was that
nothing was free in the country, while the other lesson was that black men had to behave in a
particular manner around police officers to avoid getting killed. None of those lessons was as
crucial as my third lesson.

Aunt Moji’s son, Tunde-Sean, taught me my most important lesson: how to survive in
a neighborhood filled with gang violence.

Tunde-Sean’s name is weird. Aunt Moji and Dave had problems deciding on his first
name. Dave’s favorite artiste was a rapper named Diddy, whose real name was Sean Combs.
Due to his love for Diddy, Dave wanted to name his first son Sean after Diddy. Aunt Moji
preferred the name Babatunde, which is a Yoruba name given to a male child born a few weeks
after the death of an older male relative. Tunde-Sean was born six weeks after my grandfather’s
death, and Aunt Moji wanted to maintain the Yoruba tradition by naming her son Babatunde
in honor of her dead father.

They both reached a compromise and agreed to name him Tunde-Sean. That way, Aunt
Moji got to honor her dead father while Dave got to name his son after Diddy.

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Of course, only Aunt Moji and I could correctly pronounce the Tunde in his name
because Dave and her kids could not speak Yoruba, and they always pronounced it as Tune –
d instead of Tun – day. Tunde-Sean was sixteen years old when I relocated to America, and he
knew more about the streets of our neighborhood in Detroit than me.

I remember my shock the first time I saw a gun. I searched for my hairbrush in the room
I shared with Tunde-Sean and his brother when I saw a black pistol. I was scared when I saw
the gun. I thought a burglar had broken into the house. In Nigeria, only police officers and
burglars made use of firearms.

Tunde-Sean entered the room a few minutes after I had found the gun. I said to him in
a shaky voice, “There is a burglar here. He left his gun here.”

Tunde-Sean pinned me against the wall. “Well, you ain’t in Africa no more, jungle boy.
Here in America, everyone keeps guns for personal protection. Next time I see you around my
Glock, I’m gon’ kill you. If you tell my mom or dad about this, I’m gonna put a bullet into your
fuckin’ skull and send you to a grave in Africa.”

I nodded my head weakly and stayed out of Tunde-Sean’s way for the rest of the week.
He told me to take a walk with him on a bright Saturday morning, and he taught me about the
streets. He taught me specific street phrases like weed, which means marijuana, strap, which
means gun, catch a body, which means killing someone, lean, which means codeine, and opp,
which means enemy.

He told me that our neighborhood was filled with black kids who felt oppressed by the
American system, which kept black people at the bottom. He told me that most of the kids
joined gangs to make money or to become powerful.

I asked him which gang he belonged to, and he smiled before making some gestures
with his fingers (which I later understood to be a gang sign). He saw the ignorance on my face
and rolled his eyes before saying, “I’m a Blood.”

I stared at him dumbly and wondered how a human being could be blood. “Do you
mean white blood cells or red blood cells?”

“Fucking hell, jungle boy. I’m a Blood. As in, Blood is the name of my gang,” he
explained. “This neighborhood used to be run by those fuckin’ Crips, but we smoked them out.
Now we run the fuckin’ streets.” He smiled slowly. “I caught three bodies.”

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I froze. Tunde-Sean had just confessed to me that he murdered three people and did not
seem remorseful about it. He seemed proud of himself, and I wondered why black kids living
in the projects killed each other over control of the streets. It did not make any sense to me.
White kids in America were studying ICT in colleges while black kids in the ghettos were
killing each other over who controlled the streets and wore the most expensive jewelry.

He flashed me his gun, which was hidden in his back pocket. “You still gotta be careful
though. That’s why I don’t go nowhere without my fuckin’ strap. Many of these niggas gon’
shoot you for nothing. I can’t get caught lackin’.”

“Isn’t that word offensive?” I asked. I had watched a few movies where black people
got angry whenever they were called niggers.

Tunde-Sean balled his fists. “A black person can say it, but white people are not allowed
to call us that.”

“Why can black people call each other niggers and get angry when white people call
them niggers?”

“Shut the fuck up! Go back to Africa where nobody gets killed for being a nigger.”

I noticed that African Americans hated African immigrants. I lost count of the number
of times African Americans laughed at my accent or asked if I lived in a hut in Africa. Many
of them failed to recognize that Africa is a continent filled with diverse people and not just a
country. I noticed that they hated white people too because they thought they were oppressed
by the white people living in America.

Tunde-Sean and I spent time together several times, and he told me the neighborhoods
I had to avoid at night. He also warned me to stay away from shootings or fights. He told me
how to act around different gangs. He confided in me that he sold drugs to afford some sneakers
and clothes that his parents would never buy for him.

I almost died of shock when Tunde-Sean came home with an earring in his left ear, and
his parents did not say anything. In Nigeria, if a male child comes home wearing an earring, he
would be kicked out of the house or beaten to a coma by his parents. Wearing earrings as a
man in Nigeria will make you get harassed and bullied by police officers, and no parent would
want you anywhere near their kids because they would consider you to be a bad influence.

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We lived in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Detroit, where homicides happened

regularly. It was usual for us to hear gunshots in the middle of the night. It was normal for
homes to be robbed. People like Tunde-Sean sold drugs publicly, and no cops stopped them
because most of the cops were corrupt and were on the payroll of the drug lords in the
neighborhood.

I maintained my academic diligence in America. I was unarguably the smartest kid in

my class. Initially, the kids laughed at me because of my accent and my high sense of morals,
but when they realized that I kept getting A+ in every subject, they all wanted to be my friends.
The teachers loved me, and my classmates worshipped me.

I was good at sports as well. I enjoyed a sport that Americans called football. I initially
found it awkward because, in Africa and Europe, football is played by using the feet and by
ten players and one goalkeeper. But in America, their version of football is a sport where people
run around with a small ball in their hands and attempt to reach the touchline. I found it strange
initially, but I adapted to it, and I enjoyed the sport. I became very good at it and attracted
attention from the girls, and some guys too (which I found very strange initially).

If people discover that you are gay in Nigeria, you may be beaten by an angry mob.
Worse still, your parents may send you to a prayer camp for deliverance from the spirit of
homosexuality, or you can be sent to jail for fourteen years for being homosexual.

However, I was shocked that men kiss each other in America, and gay people were even
portrayed in movies positively. In Nigeria, homosexual roles are only shown in movies to
ridicule homosexuals, not celebrate or promote them. However, my orientation about
homosexuality changed after a few years in America. I started to believe that people had the
right to love and be with anyone if it was consensual. I even joined a gay rights activist group
in high school, and we helped promote awareness of same-sex attraction.

My life changed in 2012. That was the time Ms. Carrington visited our school. She
worked at Royal College, a place that would change my life forever. The place I met the people
that introduced me to internet fraud.

CHAPTER TWO

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Royal College in Los Angeles is an exclusive private college strictly meant for the
wealthiest people in the world. It is a college strictly for wealthy, privileged, and well-
connected people. The tuition fee at Royal College makes Harvard look like the Primark of
universities.

Royal College was established by a group of rich white men in the early 19th century
who wanted their children to study together. Towards the end of the 19th century, the college
began admitting other wealthy students unrelated to the early founders. The college is more
concerned about economic advancement than academics.

Royal College specializes in business administration and ICT because its students are
CEOs or heirs of top conglomerates or founders of successful tech companies. In the year 2000,
the college went through a major reform. The criteria for admission were changed. Rather than
admitting only wealthy students, the college allocated quotas for the families of war veterans.
The college also began to give out five scholarship slots to brilliant students every year.

A college representative, Ms. Carrington, visited my high school in Detroit, urging

seniors to apply for the college’s generous scholarship. She encouraged us to write an SAT and
apply for the scholarship. She also told us about the benefits of the college.

When it was time for questions, one student asked, “Will we get jobs after graduating
from Royal College?”

Ms. Carrington nodded her head. “A degree from Royal College will help you get a job
anywhere. We are known for our exclusivity and competence. Any company in the world will
be delighted to hire a Royal College graduate. Besides, you will get to make vital social
connections at the college that will help you in the future.”

I did not pay any attention to Ms. Carrington’s words because I had planned my life
already. Just like many intelligent but poor black kids, I wanted to attend Howard University.

“You’ve read that book more than a million times. Why do you keep reading it
anyway?” my girlfriend, Jada, asked me after she saw me reading Jordan Belfort’s Wolf of Wall
Street in the middle of our lunch.

“He inspires me a lot,” I replied.

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Jordan Belfort was like a god to me. I was obsessed with him. He grew up as an average
person before he used his intelligence to become a millionaire who flew private jets everywhere
and fucked the most expensive hookers in the world.

“I should be scared of you. The type of people you idolize makes me wonder if you’re
a good or bad person. You worship Jordan Belfort, Ross Ulbricht, Escobar, El Chapo, and
Lupin. The only thing they have in common is their criminal status.”

I shook my head. “They were smart people who used their intelligence to transform
their financial situations. They moved from poverty to riches.”

“And they ended up dead or in prison,” Jada pointed out. “Ulbricht will probably never
make it out of prison.”

“At least they enjoyed their wealth before they got caught.”

Jada rolled her eyes. “It’s pointless arguing with you. Are you going to apply for the
Royal College scholarship?

“I’m not sure yet,” I told her.

“You should try it. You’re smart.”

“It is pointless. No black student has ever won the scholarship anyway. They only
award the scholarship to white kids and Jews.”

Jada convinced me to apply for the scholarship. I got an SAT score of 1503 out of 1600.
Aunt Moji was proud of me, and she told my younger cousin, Devante, to study hard to end up
like me instead of Tunde-Sean, who got killed in a gang battle the previous year.

I wrote the scholarship exam two weeks after my SAT and waited for two weeks
without any response. I hung out with Jada a lot during that period. She got abysmal grades on
her SAT and decided against going to college.

“I wish I could be as smart as you are, Josh,” she told me jokingly during one of our
dates at Pizza Hut.

I laughed. “Well, Yoruba people are one of the smartest people on earth. Don’t worry.
Our kids will inherit my genes and will be extremely smart.”

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We both laughed until my phone buzzed. I checked it. It was an email from Royal
College:

Dear Mr. Joshua Balogun,

On behalf of the Royal College Foundation, I would like to inform you that you have
been invited to the next phase of your scholarship application. After your success in the
scholarship exam and a careful review of your application, we feel you are an excellent choice
to receive the Royal College Foundation scholarship.

The next step of your application is a personal interview at Royal College on March
18, 2012, at 8:30 a.m. The Royal College Foundation understands that Los Angeles is quite far
from the homes of many of our shortlisted applicants, and that is why we attached a United
Airlines gift card to this email to help you book a flight. We have also made a reservation at
The Ritz-Carlton, Los Angeles, for your stay. There is a designated driver at the hotel for every
shortlisted candidate. Your designated driver will drive you to the campus for your interview.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding your interview, please feel free to
contact us at your convenience via telephone at (555)-111-3333 or email at
[email protected]. We wish you success in the rest of your scholarship
application process.

Sincerely,

Dr. Steven McCarthy

Selection Committee

Royal College Foundation

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I showed Jada the email, and she was very excited. “Yo! This school is amazing, man.
They got you flight vouchers and booked a nice hotel for you. These rich folks are really on a
different level.”

The Ritz-Carlton felt like heaven on earth. I got there a day before my interview. I could
not fully explore the luxurious hotel because I spent my time preparing for my scholarship
interview. I went to the parking space of the hotel on the date of my interview. I met more than
ten drivers, all dressed in suits in front of black stretch Limousines. Each of the drivers had a
placard in their hands bearing different names.

“Damn! Look at these limousines,” a voice whispered from behind. I turned back to see
a teenage guy dressed in a navy suit. There were a couple of teenagers behind him. Just like
me, they were going for the interview. None of us talked to each other because we were at war.
We were fifteen in number, and only five of us would win the scholarship.

I looked at the placards in the hands of each of the drivers until I saw the driver holding
a placard that contained my name. The driver looked like he was in his mid-50s. I showed him
my ID before he opened the door for me and bowed his head slightly. My pride soared at that
point. It was the first time a white person had ever bowed to me.

The campus was like heaven. There were many flowers and beautiful architectural
structures. The campus was ridiculously huge as well. The campus contained a large Helipad
where I saw more than a dozen helicopters. My jaw dropped when the driver parked at a vast
parking lot, and I saw the other cars parked there. There were more than eight Bugatti cars,
several Rolls Royce Wraith cars, and other luxury cars. The worth of the vehicles at the parking
lot was probably more than the GDP of some third-world countries.

“Who owns these cars?” I asked the driver.

He smiled. “The students here own the cars. No staff member is allowed to use this
parking lot.”

At that moment, I became worried. I wondered how I would cope among students that
went to campus in helicopters and luxury cars.

I was interviewed by a bald man and a pretty lady who appeared to be in her early
thirties. They both looked elegant and wealthy. They were white too. They were as white as
white could possibly be.

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“What is your future ambition, Mr. Ba – Ba –” he struggled to pronounce my Yoruba

surname.

“Please call me, Josh,” I cut in.

He breathed deeply in relief. “Okay, Mr. Josh. What is your future ambition?”

“I’d like to become an Accounting Officer in the future, sir.”

He nodded his head and took two sharp breaths as he looked through my documents
and saw my SAT score. “I see you are a brilliant student.”

“Yoruba people are the most intelligent people in the world,” I retorted without
thinking.

“Pardon?”

“Oh, nothing, sir.”

The lady smiled at me brightly. “Tell me, Mr. Josh, where do you see yourself in ten
years?”

I closed my eyes for a second and pondered on the question. “I see two versions of
myself in ten years.” They seemed confused, and I continued, “The first version of myself won
this scholarship and studied at Royal College. I see myself working as an Accounting Officer
at Apple after earning my MBA in business management.”

The lady smiled, and the man nodded his head in approval.

“I also see another version of me that failed to get this scholarship and returned to the
slums of Detroit. That version of me had to join gangs like other black kids in the neighborhood
to make money because I did not want to live in poverty like other family members.

I see myself selling drugs in the ghetto. I see myself blaming white people for my
poverty and actions. I see myself transferring my frustration towards the other black kids
around me. I see myself going through the cycle of jail. I see myself getting released from
prison for the first time and realizing that no one wants to hire a black ex-convict. I see myself
going back to crime. I see myself being poor and having antisocial kids who would also grow
up hating white people.”

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I stopped talking and saw the shocked expressions of my interviewers. They were both
frozen in shock.

“As I said, those are the two versions of where I see myself in ten years. Everything
depends on this scholarship.”

The man recovered from his shock first. “Yes. Thank you, Mr. Josh. You’ve made your
point clear enough. We will inform you about the outcome of your application after a couple
of weeks.”

“Thanks,” I said as I left. I nodded at the lady, but she was still frozen in shock. My
interview shocked her.

I returned home and told Aunt Moji about the interview.

“What is wrong with you? Why did you tell them you will join gangs and kill people if
you don’t get the scholarship?” she cried. “They will drag you to a psychiatric hospital instead
of giving you the scholarship.”

She called my mom on the phone immediately and told her that I blew my chances of
getting a scholarship because I told my interviewers that I would join gangs and murder people
if I failed to get the scholarship.

The only thing Yoruba women had in common was their ability to create a mountain
out of a molehill. They could exaggerate and overreact in any situation.

My mom started questioning me, and she asked if I had joined any terrorist group. She
started crying in Yoruba and lamenting about how America turned her innocent son into a
killer. The more I tried to explain to her that I had not killed anyone yet, the louder she cried.

I got an email two weeks afterward. I won the scholarship and became the first black
student in history to be admitted to Royal College. Aunt Moji’s joy knew no bounds. She called
all her friends to inform them that I had become the first black student to study at Royal
College.

I also got an admission letter from Howard University that same day. I realized the
enormousness of my responsibility as the first black student to be admitted to Royal College.
All eyes would be on me. My skin color would stand out. Everyone would always notice me.

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I would have to always behave in a particular manner because I represented the entire black
race at the institution.

“I don’t know which to pick between Royal College and Howard University,” I told
Aunt Moji.

She stared at me like I had grown two heads. “Are you kidding me? The only people
you will meet at Howard are poor black people like you, but at Royal College, you will meet
billionaires and multi-millionaires. You will meet people with the right social connections that
will help you move upwards.

Here in America, the only way to climb the social ladder is to either be rich or to have
rich friends. You will not meet billionaires at Howard. You will only meet black students who
are from middle-class or low-income families like you. To become an influential black man in
this country, you need to move with the elite white people. You can find rich white people in
Royal College, not Howard.”

Aunt Moji was only trying to help me, but her advice that night sealed my fate. Maybe
I would not be in prison right now if I had gone to Howard like other black people. Perhaps if
I had gone to Howard, I would not have been intimidated by the wealth of my classmates and
be tempted to engage in fraud and money laundering.

I broke the news of my admission to Jada, and she did not seem quite happy.

“Whenever black people become rich, they stop associating themselves with other
black people,” she said. “They start thinking of us as ghetto people just like the white people.”

“I will never think of you as a ghetto girl,” I told her.

“What if you fall in love with one of those rich girls in your college?”

“You have my heart, Jada,” I assured her.

“But I’m scared. Successful black men always marry white girls and forget the black
girls they loved when they were poor,” she said in a sad voice.

“I love you. Nothing will ever change that.”

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Everything I said to Jada that night turned out to be lies. Just like she predicted, I fell
in love with a rich white girl. Jada and I had tons of sex like our lives depended on it before I
eventually traveled to Los Angeles. A new chapter of my life started at Royal College.

CHAPTER THREE

Life at Royal College was different. As a scholarship student, I did not have to pay
tuition, and the college provided me with a monthly stipend of $500, which was a big deal to
me. I was also assigned to a dorm that was not like any dorm I had ever seen.

Our dormitory looked like a 5-star hotel rather than a dorm. Due to the financial
backgrounds of most of the students in the college, our dormitory depicted luxury. Our
dormitory was built in the form of a huge manor house. Our rooms looked like the suites at the
InterContinental Hotel in Hong Kong (I lodged at the presidential suite at InterContinental
Hong Kong for almost a month, and it cost me $12,628 per night). Crazy right? Well, a drug
cartel sponsored my trip, and our cartel raked in several million weekly.

Everything about our dorm was fancy. Two people shared a room. We had cleaners
who cleaned our rooms regularly. There were 85 inches 4k Samsung televisions in every room.
We had a Jacuzzi. We practically had everything we could ever dream of, and we had two
swimming pools at the dorm. It was like a mini paradise.

I came from one of the most rural towns in Africa where we barely had electricity for
ten hours in a week and lived in the ghetto part of Detroit where fifteen-year-old kids carried
guns. Therefore, moving to such a luxurious dormitory was quite overwhelming during my
first few days.

Eric Walters was my roommate. There was a poster on the wall at the side of his bed.
The poster contained a picture of Eric on the cover of Forbes magazine in 2011. He was the
richest teenager in the world in 2011, with a net worth of $2.6 billion. Eric developed his
operating system at the age of thirteen. The software proliferated, and Microsoft sensed the
rivalry as more tech companies started to opt for Eric’s operating system. Microsoft decided to
purchase his software company before it got more prominent than it already was. He got paid
$1 billion in cash and got shares worth $1.6 billion.

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Eric Walters belonged to the new money category because he was a self-made
billionaire. Unlike the elites who came from wealthy family lines, Eric’s father was a
schoolteacher while his mother worked as a cleaner at a warehouse.

Eric Walters was a nice guy, but the problem with Eric was his obsession with books.
While eating, he would hold a fork with one hand and a book with the other. He always took
books with him to the bathroom.

When I arrived at the room for the first time and introduced myself as his roommate.
He smiled and welcomed me warmly before burying his head in his books. There were times I
heard Eric murmuring about domain names and IP addresses in his sleep.

Eric Walters acted like a sane person for thirty minutes daily. During those rare
moments of normalcy, he would ask me if I had any challenges, and we would talk like regular
roommates. The problem was that Eric’s thirty minutes of normalcy were never stable. He
could wake me up at 2 a.m. to talk about the weather or could start talking to me about a girl
that winked at him when he was in the sixth grade.

My first night at the dorm was splendid. I soaked myself in the bathtub and took a nice
delightful bath. I woke up the following day and found Eric typing some sort of code on his
laptop. I said “hi” to him, but he did not seem to notice me. I heard a couple of knocks on the
door and opened it to see a blonde guy.

The blonde guy stared at me curiously for an entire minute. “Hi,” he finally said.

“Hi,” I replied.

“My name is Craig, and I am the head of this dorm. I heard you moved in two days
ago.”

“Yeah, that’s right. My name is Josh. Balogun Joshua.”

Craig seemed confused for a minute. “Bal – Bal – goon?”

I smiled. “Never mind. It’s an African name. I’m from Nigeria.”

Craig’s eyes lit up. “Ha! That is good. Are you a Nigerian prince?”

“No.”

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“Are you the son of a politician? I heard African politicians are wealthy.”

I shrugged. “I’m not related to any Nigerian politician.”

Craig’s face fell. “Are you a new money student then? Like Eric Walters?”

“I am a scholarship student.”

Craig’s jaw dropped open. Eric’s fingers froze on his keyboard. A dark-haired guy
walking in the hallway froze as well.

“You’re a student in need?”

I nodded my head. “Yeah, I guess that is the right term.”

The dark-haired guy swore in a foreign language for a minute before he said, “I don’t
understand why we have to keep bending the rules for black people all the time. We pay a huge
tuition fee to study here, and the college allows him to study here without paying a dime just
because of his skin color. They talk about white privilege all the time while black people are
being treated better than others. Fuck!”

He stormed off in anger, still swearing in a foreign language.

Craig recovered from his shock. “Ignore Viktor. He’s quite conservative.”

Viktor’s outburst was one of the several outbursts I encountered at the college. Being
black was hard enough at Royal college but being a poor scholarship student only made things
worse.

Craig handed over a bunch of flyers to me and told me about the amenities at the dorm
and some other things. I ignored him because I was still stunned by Viktor’s outburst. It was
the first time I ever experienced a verbal racist attack.

Eric noticed my silence after Craig left and said, “Don’t worry. Viktor does not like
anybody. He hates anyone that isn’t Russian.”

I nodded my head. “I think he’s gonna make my life hell.”

“Just ignore him. He’s not rich compared to the other kids here anyway. He’s only
worth $56 million. The only reason he’s considered an elite is because of his family line. Many
elites don’t like him because he’s broke,” Eric explained.

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I swallowed hard. If the kids at this college looked down on a person worth $56 million,
how would they treat a scholarship student? At that period, I did not even have up to $1,000 in
my bank account.

“I think I’m gonna have a hard time.”

“Don’t worry,” Eric said. “I totally understand you. These kids are just stupid. They
don’t wanna be friends with me because of my family background. My father was a
schoolteacher while my mom was a warehouse cleaner before I got rich. They look down on
anyone who doesn’t come from a wealthy family line.”

“How much is your net worth?”

Eric shrugged. “Microsoft shares fell a week ago, so I think I’m worth $2.2 billion at
the moment.”

“I have $725.68 in my bank account.”

“Oh damn!”

Eric explained the hierarchical structure at Royal College to me. There were three types
of students at the college.

The first group was the elites. Elites were students who were born into a family of elites.
Their families had been affluent for several generations.

The second group was new money. New money students were self-made
millionaires/billionaires who did not come from wealthy family backgrounds. Eric belonged to
the new money group.

The third group was the student in need category, consisting of scholarship students
and war veterans’ children. The elites were above. The new money students were in the middle,
while the students in need were at the bottom. At Royal College, people who did not come
from wealthy backgrounds were discriminated against and treated as inferiors irrespective of
their net worth.

The next day was a Sunday, and I did not go anywhere. A phone call waked me up from
Jada. Before she called, I had almost forgotten I had a girlfriend. I had been busy trying to
adjust to my new environment.

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“I guess you don’t have time for your black friends anymore now that you attend a
college filled with rich white kids,” she said in an angry tone.

“Good morning to you too, Jada,” I said in a sarcastic tone.

“I miss you. This is the first time you failed to talk with me for more than two days,”
she complained.

“I’m sorry. I’m trying to get used to this place. Everything here is different.”

She asked me about my dormitory, and I told her it looked more like a hotel suite than
a student dormitory. I promised to send pictures of my new room to ger later. Then she asked
me if I had made any friends yet.

“It isn’t easy to make friends here, Jada. I haven’t been to class yet, but the people in
my dormitory aren’t too friendly. They are quite racist, and they don’t really like black people.
Impoverished black people.”

“Don’t let them get to you,” Jada said. “Ignore them and focus on your studies. You’re
a fucking genius. How many roommates do you have?”

I glanced at Eric’s sleeping figure. “Just one. His name is Eric Walters.”

“Is he also rich?”

“He’s worth $2.2 billion right now.”

Jada screamed on the other end. “What!”

“Forbes named him as the richest teenager in the world last year,” I explained.

“Holy Molly! Are these the type of people in your dorm?”

“Yeah. The poorest person I have seen in this dorm is worth $56 million.”

“Fuck! These white people control all the money in the fuckin’ country.”

“I don’t know if I can cope anymore, Jada. I feel so alone and miserable. My roommate
spends more time talking to his computer than talking to me. None of the other kids at the dorm
want to be seen with a scholarship student. Everything is so difficult and confusing.”

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Jada assured me that all would be well, and we talked for a couple of minutes before I
hung up. I went to my giant fridge and took out some snacks and a bottle of Pepsi. I had not
had a proper meal ever since I moved into the dorm. We had a restaurant at the dorm that was
always open, but I had to return to my room the first time I went there because the kids stared
at me like I was an alien.

The good part about our dormitory was that every suite had a pantry that was always
filled with snacks. Everyone also had a giant fridge filled with soda, spirit, and wine. The
college provided it for free, but you had to pay to eat at the restaurant in the dormitory.

I went to class the following day, and everyone stopped talking immediately they saw
me. I always sat in the front row in my high school in Detroit because I loved listening closely
to whatever the professor taught in class. I ignored the stares I got from my classmates and sat
at an empty seat in the front row. I sat next to a blonde guy who had a blank look on his face.

“You’re not meant to sit here, scholarship student,” a gruff voice said from behind.

I heard loud gasps as my classmates discovered that I was a scholarship student. I turned
towards the gruff voice that exposed my financial status and was not surprised to see Viktor.

“Come on, it’s only a seat,” I said with a smile, trying to act cool.

“No,” another student said from behind. “The front row is meant for the elites.
Scholarship students and other students in need always sit at the back.”

I looked back and saw a bunch of miserable, sad faces. It reminded me of high school
all over. In high school, the jocks had the hot girls and always sat where they could be easily
noticed, while the wimpy kids sat at the back.

“Go and sit with your fellow students in need. You should know your place. The college
already did you a favor by allowing you to study here without paying a dime. The least you
can do is to sit at the back and allow people that pay their tuition fees enjoy the front row,”
Viktor said.

Many students grunted in approval. I cursed in Yoruba before I took my bag and
switched to the back row.

“Don’t worry. You will get used to it,” the guy sitting next to me said.

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“I hate it here already. It is worse than I thought. I never knew so much importance
could be paid to seating arrangements.”

The guy shrugged. “I tried to quit this college last semester, but my father wouldn’t
hear of it. He’s a war veteran and thinks that my admission to this college is a gift from heaven.”

“I should have gone to Howard instead,” I muttered. “By the way, my name is Josh
Balogun. What about you?”

The guy smiled. “My name is David Lewinson.”

David Lewinson was in his second year. He explained how the seating arrangements
worked. The front row was exclusive to the elites. The middle row was exclusive to the new
money students, while the back row was meant for students in need.

“There is a strange exception, though,” David said. He pointed at the blonde guy I
initially sat next to. “His name is Dmitri. We were both students in need during my first
semester in college. Then, suddenly, the guy started wearing Gucci outfits to campus and
bought a Rolls Royce Wraith. Within a few weeks, he started moving with the elites.”

I turned towards Dmitri. He was laughing at a joke cracked by Viktor. “How did he
become rich?”

David shrugged. “Nobody knows. Several rumors are surrounding his sudden financial
success.” David pointed at an Asian guy and a white guy who sat next to each other. “The
Asian guy is Wang, and the other guy’s name is Harry. They used to be Dmitri’s best friends
until he started moving with the elites. Just like Dmitri, they are students in need. They used to
look tacky and unkempt until they suddenly showed up in College last semester driving
matching Bugatti cars. The only difference is that, unlike Dmitri, the elites did not allow Harry
and Wang into their circle.”

I studied Harry and Wang carefully. Unlike other students in need, Harry and Wang
wore diamond-encrusted watches on their wrists and wore Dior sweatshirts. Harry wore a pair
of Christian Louboutin sneakers while Wang wore a pair of Guiseppe Zanotti sneakers.

“They don’t look like students in need,” I commented after studying them closely.

David chuckled. “I wish you had seen Wang during his first semester. The guy only
had two faded shirts which he wore to classes daily. He looked pathetic back then.”

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I took my eyes off Harry and Wang and focused on our classroom instead. Our lecture
room looked like a conference room at Apple. It was the fanciest lecture room that I had ever
seen. A professor entered the class, and everyone became silent. He introduced himself as Dr.
Kennedy, our Principles of Marketing professor. He told everyone to introduce themselves.

“Take out your phone and type their names on Google,” David told me.

“Why?” I asked him.

“So that you can know the caliber of your classmates.”

I nodded my head. “Okay.”

The first guy stood up. His hair looked like it had been gelled from birth. “My name is
Edward Morrison, and I am a freshman.”

I typed Edward Morrison on Google and found his Wikipedia page. According to
Wikipedia, Edward was the son of Donald Morrison, the 52nd wealthiest man in the world.
Donald’s net worth was $38 billion. Edward himself was an investor and a significant
shareholder in several companies and was worth $5.2 billion. The most shocking part of it was
that Edward was only 18 years old. An eighteen-year-old kid worth over $5 billion!

“Holy shit!” I muttered.

David chuckled. “Welcome to Royal College. A college where your classmates are
richer than many countries.”

“My name is Melina Dervishi,” a soft feminine voice said.

The voice was like music to my ears. I turned my head slowly towards the direction of
the voice. I could not breathe. My heartbeat became irregular. The world and everything else
around me froze. Melina Dervishi was the definition of perfection. For the first time in my life,
I felt butterflies in my stomach.

I had seen several beautiful ladies in my lifetime, but none of them could match her.
Everything about her screamed perfection. Her hips were perfect. Her eyes were grey and
sparkling. Her dark hair looked soft and silky. Her ass could make a monk recant his vows. She
was perfect.

“Looks like somebody is in love,” David muttered, snapping me out of my thoughts.

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I turned away from Melina and showed David my middle finger before searching for
Melina Dervishi on Google. It turned out that she was an heiress. Her parents were immigrants.
Her father was an Albanian, while her mother was from Iran. Her father owned a winery worth
$1 billion, and her mother owned a fashion brand worth $450 million. She was the only child
of her parents and was bound to inherit their companies. I could not take my eyes off Melina
even as other students introduced themselves.

A student in need got up and introduced himself. The boy looked like he missed several
meals as a child. He was very tiny and looked sick. “Hi everyone, my name is Oliver,” he said.

“Is this guy seriously wearing a GUGGI shirt?” Viktor chuckled. Everyone in class
began laughing as well. Even Dr. Kennedy could not stifle his laughter. Oliver wore a shirt
with the inscription GUGGI instead of GUCCI.

“These students in need are always trying to imitate our lifestyles,” an elite student
named Mark said. “You should have stuck to H&M or Primark instead of wearing a fake Gucci
shirt.”

Oliver could not stop the tears streaming down his cheeks as everyone mocked him. I
felt bad for Oliver. The poor boy looked like he wanted the earth to swallow him.

I became nervous when it was time for me to introduce myself. I took a deep breath.
“My name is Josh. Joshua Balogun.”

A couple of elites made monkey noises while some other students screamed vulgar
words at me. Dr. Kennedy did nothing to stop them. He probably failed to stop them because
he knew that the students had the power to get him fired.

Like other professors at the college, he turned a blind eye to the actions of the rude
elites. David gave me a gentle pat on my shoulder to offer me some reassurance.

As the class progressed, I realized that I was not as bright as I thought I was. Dr.
Kennedy kept talking about stocks, and many elites and new money students contributed to the
discussion. Just like other students in need, I had no idea of what was being discussed. My
parents in Nigeria earned $46 monthly. How would I be familiar with the stock market like my
classmates who grew up watching their parents control top conglomerates?

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“A quick question, everyone. Which marketing strategy would you employ if you want
to convince investors to invest in a company on the verge of bankruptcy?” Dr. Kennedy asked.

Whenever professors asked questions in my high school in Detroit, I was always the
first to provide answers. I pushed the button on my table, and Dr. Kennedy gestured to me to
talk. Whenever you had something to say in our lecture room, all you needed to do was push a
button on the table.

“Yes, Josh,” he said with a smile.

“I think the best solution is to sell the company at a meager price to avoid complete
monetary loss,” I said.

“What does a scholarship student know about managing companies?” Viktor muttered.
A couple of students laughed.

“Be respectful, Viktor.” Dr. Kennedy studied me carefully. “If every company gets sold
whenever they’re on the verge of bankruptcy, many top companies wouldn’t exist by now.”

I felt stupid instantly. Edward Morrison pushed the button on his table, and Dr. Kennedy
told him to speak.

Edward said, “I suggest the CEO of such a company should take an illegal approach.”

“Care to explain further?”

Edward nodded his head. “One of my companies produces women’s clothing. Two
years ago, the company was on the verge of bankruptcy due to our massive promotional
campaigns. I decided to do something quite illegal to save the company from going bankrupt.

I falsified the annual report and made it appear like we had a profit of 14% instead of a
significant loss. I showed the falsified report to a couple of investors and convinced them to
invest more money into the company.

By the end of last year, we recorded a massive profit of 35%. If I hadn’t falsified the
reports to hide the fact that we were going bankrupt, we wouldn’t have had investors, and if
we did not have investors, we wouldn’t have realized a 35%-profit by last year. White-collar
crimes are often permissible as long as everyone is happy.”

Everyone was stunned and began to clap for Edward.

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Dr. Kennedy nodded in approval. “But what if your plan had failed and you did not
realize any profit eventually?”

Edward shrugged. “Well, business is a risk. If we don’t take risks, we will never be
successful.”

I felt invisible until the end of the class.

“I feel like I’m dumb. Everyone here seems to be a lot smarter than I am. I completely
embarrassed myself earlier,” I complained to David after Dr. Kennedy left the class.

David nodded in an understanding manner. “Well, this college focuses solely on

practical and realistic scenarios. You are used to theoretical approaches. You only know about
business management because of what you read in books, but these guys were born into
business management. Most of them own their companies and know how a lot about
management. This college is not for people who want to become professors in business
management. Rather it is meant to train future CEOs.”

“Fuck!”

“Besides, some of these students attended the best high schools with the best facilities
in the world, and their parents were rich enough to employ the best private tutors to give them
extra lessons at home. You went to an under-equipped high school in Detroit while Edward
Morrison studied at Le Rosey in Switzerland where Grade 6 pupils pay tuition of over
$100,000.”

David was right. My high school in Detroit was massively understaffed, and our library
lacked enough books. Most of our teachers were not even qualified enough. There was a
massive gap between my high school and the high schools that the other students attended.

CHAPTER FOUR

There were times I wondered if I was in a lecture room or if I was on a fashion runway.
Many of my classmates came to lecture rooms every day just to flaunt their new clothes. Some
of them even changed their outfits after each class. Our classes felt like fashion parades.

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Apart from the students in need, everyone else wore designer outfits to class every day.
They wore Dior, Armani, Chanel, Valentino, Burberry, and others. All my clothes were from
thrift stores. Wang and Harry were the only students in need who wore expensive outfits to
classes.

I noticed that the elites and new money students never wore the same outfit twice. It
was a sin to repeat an outfit twice irrespective of its expensive costs. Like other students in
need, I repeated my outfits all the time because I had limited options.

It was intimidating to see my classmates wearing outfits that were worth more than my
account balance. As a scholarship student, I got a monthly stipend of $500 from the college. I
sent $150 to my family in Nigeria monthly. I sent $100 to Aunt Moji every month while I kept
the remaining $250 for myself. Yet Melina’s daily outfits were worth more than my monthly
stipend. I could not talk to Melina because I felt intimidated. Why would I talk to a girl whose
shoes are worth more than my bank account balance?

In my mind, Melina and I were married in a fantasy world and had five kids together,
but in reality, I was too nervous to say hi to her. I was intimidated by her wealth, and the fact
that Viktor made himself her bodyguard only made things worse.

“You should talk to her instead of staring at her all the time,” David advised me after
seeing me staring at Melina in one of our classes.

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“She’s rich, and I’m poor. It’s only in movies that wealthy people get married to poor
people.”

David chuckled. “It’s better to try and fail than not to try at all.”

I shifted uneasily. “Take a look at Shannon,” I told him. Shannon was also a scholarship
student like me. “She’s a student in need, and she’s dating Taylor, a fellow student in need.
Edward is an elite, and he’s dating Samantha, another elite. Look at everyone else in our class.
They all date according to their social classes. None of our rich classmates are dating poor
students.”

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David shrugged. “Harry is dating Alicia. She’s a new money student, and he’s a student
in need.”

I rolled my eyes. “Does Harry look like a student in need to you? The guy drives a
freakin’ Bugatti to campus every day.”

I had gone through Harry's Instagram page the previous night. His Instagram page was
filled with pictures of exotic vacations. He was constantly posting pictures of his shopping trips
or photos of himself in a private jet. If not because he always sat in the row meant for students
in need, I would have never believed that he was a student in need.

David shook his head. “Harry doesn’t look or act like a student in need, but it doesn’t
matter. I believe you can love anyone you want irrespective of their race, religion, or social
class.”

“Yeah, easier said than done.”

I frowned when I saw Melina laughing at something Viktor had said. At that moment,
I felt a strange urge to rip off his tongue. I was the only guy meant to make her smile.

“You’re only torturing yourself,” David whispered.

Oliver committed suicide two weeks after the GUGGI incident. Everyone kept calling
him GUGGI and mocking him. The poor boy could not handle the bullying anymore and threw
himself off the third floor during one of our lectures.

Ten minutes before Oliver ended his life, Professor Muller told us to find partners for
a class discussion. I stuck with David since we were always together, but nobody wanted Oliver
as their partner.

“Can I be your partner?” Oliver asked Viktor after everyone else had turned him down.

“No, Guggi. Don’t you get it? Nobody wants you. You mean nothing to anyone,” said
Viktor in a casual tone.

Oliver had a wild look on his face, and Viktor took few steps backward even though he
was bigger than Oliver. I thought Oliver would attack Viktor, but I was wrong.

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“Fuck you all!” Oliver yelled with tears in his eyes. “I should have never come to this
college. I thought I would be able to get a good degree and make my parents happy, but all I
see here are a bunch of arrogant rich snobs.”

He turned to Professor Muller. “Just like other professors, you don’t see anything wrong
in the way these arrogant snubs bully poor students because you are scared of being fired.”

After his rants, Oliver ran towards the window and threw himself off before anyone
could blink. I learned from David that Oliver’s incident was not the first time a student in need
committed suicide. Within the last five years, three students in need committed suicide because
of the bullying they faced at the college. The college always used its massive influence to cover
up the suicides so that the public would not know about the bullying happening in the college.

My life changed during one of our Financial Decision-Making classes. It was in the
class that I got the chance to talk to Dmitri. David and I always sat together during our classes,
but he did not register for Financial Decision-Making, which meant that I was always alone
during the course.

I ignored the usual stares I got from my classmates and went to sit in the back row.
Only a few students in need registered for Financial Decision-Making, so we were only two
students sitting in the back row.

“Can I sit next to you?” a male voice asked.

“Sure, you –” I froze when I looked up and saw that it was Dmitri. What on earth was
he trying to do? Even though he was a student in need, he never sat in the back row. He always
sat with the elites.

He smiled and sat next to me. The other students in need sitting in the row gasped in
shock as well. Every first-year student thought Dmitri was an elite. If not for David, I would
have never known that Dmitri was a student in need.

I mean, the guy drove a Rolls Royce Wraith, and his Instagram page contained his
pictures with many influential people. A couple of elites and new money students murmured
as he sat next to me. Melina looked surprised but said nothing.

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“What is wrong with Dmitri?” Viktor hissed. “You can take a pig out of the swamp,
but you can never take the swamp out of the pig. This guy will always be a student in need no
matter how much he pretends to be an elite.”

Dmitri’s eyes flashed, and he balled his fists. I briefly wondered if he wanted to punch
Viktor. Instead, he took a deep breath and unclenched his fists.

“Ignore Viktor,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “I keep hearing that all the time. I’m not surprised anyway. The guy
is a Russian.”

“Not all Russians are racists. Some of us are quite friendly. We judge people based on
their characters instead of skin colors. My name is Dmitri Yahontov.”

I smiled. “My name is Josh Balogun.”

If I had known that Dmitri would lead to my downfall, I would have probably stayed
away from him, but it’s too late to do anything. I cannot travel back in time to correct my
previous mistakes. I can only look forward to the future. But do I have a future? I will be here
for the next two decades. It is a miracle to survive a night in a maximum-security prison, but I
will remain here for more than twenty years. It will be a miracle if I do not die before then.

Dmitri seemed genuinely friendly. We both listened closely as Professor Barkley spoke
about life-changing decisions made by popular CEOs to save their companies. I searched for
Dmitri on Google, but there were no specific search results. Most of the search results were
about a Russian billionaire named Albert Yahontov.

Albert Yahontov was a forty-six-year-old Russian arms producer who was worth
around $1 billion. Albert Yahontov produced weapons for the Russian army and several
smaller countries around the world. There were also rumors that he was secretly building
nuclear bombs for the Russian government. Of course, the Russian government denied the
allegations. There was no article online that linked Dmitri with Albert Yahontov. Maybe they
only shared the same surname coincidentally.

“Can you tell us the answer, Josh?” Professor Barkley asked in a sharp tone. He had
probably noticed that I was focused on my cellphone instead of the class.

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Sensing my hesitation, Dmitri spoke up. “I think Steve Jobs was a true game-changer,
sir. Apple currently leads the world market, and if not for Steve Jobs’s innovativeness, Apple
wouldn’t have been this successful.”

Professor Barkley nodded his head in agreement, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Dmitri
had saved me from being publicly embarrassed.

After the class, Dmitri asked, “Wanna grab lunch with me?”

I smiled and said, “No, man. I can’t afford anything in the restaurant.”

I made a big mistake earlier in the week when I went to Royal Restaurant, the only
restaurant located on campus. The meals were expensive—most of the meals at the restaurant
cost above $50. My father would faint if I told him that the meals at the restaurant cost more
than his monthly salary.

“Don’t worry. It’s my treat,” Dmitri said.

“Thanks.”

I was genuinely grateful because I had not had any real meal for a while. I tried to save
money by eating free snacks from the pantry, which the college constantly refilled.

Dmitri and I sat at an empty table, and a waiter took our order. I ordered Beef
Wellington while Dmitri ordered Hay Aged Bresse Duck. I stopped breathing when Melina
walked into the restaurant with Viktor. My gaze went to their hands which were linked together.
I felt the urge to commit murder.

“You like her?” Dmitri asked as he noticed the direction of my gaze.

“Yeah,” I admitted.

“You should talk to her instead of staring at her like a serial killer.”

“I can’t talk to her. I am not her type.”

“Why do you think you’re not her type?”

I stared at him like he was crazy. “Take a look at her. A rich white girl like Melina will
never date me. Being a black man in America is bad enough but being black and poor is even

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worse. She will never find me attractive. Besides, how would I afford to take her on dates or
shopping even if she likes me? I can’t even afford to pay for her lunch in this restaurant.”

Dmitri shrugged. “I don’t think Viktor is right for her.” He unlocked his phone and
showed me a video.

I gasped as soon as I watched the first five seconds of the video. In the video, Viktor
was having a sex romp at a club while some of our elite classmates cheered him on.

“If he loves her, he wouldn’t have done that last night,” Dmitri said.

I became livid. I turned around just in time to see Viktor spoon-feeding Melina. “How
did you get the video?”

“We were in the club together last night. Mark recorded the video and posted it on our
WhatsApp group chat.”

“WhatsApp group chat?”

Dmitri nodded his head. “The male elites have a WhatsApp group chat called BBC,
meaning Billionaire Boys’ Club. They post their crazy acts on the group chat.”

I wanted to ask how he got added to the group chat since he was a student in need but
changed my mind. He was the only rich person in the entire college that was nice to me. I did
not want to risk making him angry.

“Why hasn’t anyone told Melina yet? Most of the male elites are her close friends. Why
haven’t they told her about Viktor yet?”

“The Billionaire Boys’ Club is like a cult. They keep each other’s secrets tightly.
Besides, everyone has leverage on each other. None of these male elites are innocent. They all
have dirty secrets. Murder, rape, bribery, just name it.”

Dmitri and I chatted for a while, and he asked me questions about Africa. He asked
about some common stereotypes about Nigerian men and wanted to know if they were true.

“Why are there so many Nigerian princes?” he asked me.

I looked confused. “I don’t understand.”

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“I keep getting different emails from Nigerian princes who always tell me that they
have several million in the bank and that they need me to send them some money for legal fees
to reclaim their money.”

I laughed. “Yeah, send the money at your own risk.”

“Is it true that black men have long dicks? No offense. I just really need to know.”

I chuckled. “Well, I saw Eric Walters' dick once, and it was twice the size of my dick.”

Dmitri laughed before asking me about the labor market in Nigeria. He asked me about
the minimum wage, tax rates, and other questions. He told me he planned to build hotels across
African countries.

The waiter brought our bill. I gasped in shock when I saw the bill. Our meals and drinks
cost a total of $189.78.

“This is crazy,” I whispered to Dmitri. “Some people in Nigeria don’t even earn that
amount of money in four months.”

He chuckled and brought out his wallet. “Don’t worry. The bill is on me.”

I watched as Dmitri brought out at least eight black credit cards and shuffled them
before he eventually picked a card. As he handed over the card to the waiter, my eyes caught
the name on the card. The name, Alexander Brown, was boldly written on the card. I looked
away immediately.

I began to wonder why Dmitri Yahontov had Alexander Brown’s credit card.

“The card was declined, sir,” the waiter said to Dmitri.

Dmitri cursed in Russian before he brought out another black credit card in his wallet.
I quickly glanced at the name on the credit card. The name, Joseph Rosenberg, was written on
the credit card. I became apprehensive at that point as I wondered why he had several cards
that had different names.

“Thanks,” the waiter said with a smile. He gave Dmitri a receipt and returned his credit
card.

My curiosity got the better of me. “Who is Joseph Rosenberg?”

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Dmitri froze and said nervously, “He’s my friend. Why the hell did you ask?”

“I saw his name on your credit card.”

Dmitri looked around to be sure no one heard me. “Yeah, he’s my friend.”

I knew he was lying or hiding something, but I said nothing. After all, he had just bought
me the most expensive meal I had ever tasted. We exchanged our phone numbers before we
went our separate ways.

CHAPTER FIVE

Nigerians, particularly the Yoruba people in the country, are pretty superstitious. Once
something happens, we tend to generate conspiracy theories instead of admitting that the
incident may be a natural occurrence. For example, when a woman has a miscarriage, rather
than acknowledging that the miscarriage might have resulted from a genetic abnormality in the
embryo, Yoruba people will claim that the woman had a miscarriage because a witch cursed
her.

I instantly knew that something was wrong when I accidentally bruised my toe against
the wall twice while trying to get dressed for my classes. To Yoruba people, hitting your toe
against any surface or stone immediately after waking up is a sign of a bad day ahead.

I reminded myself immediately that I was in America and no longer in Africa and that
superstitions did not work in America. Eric’s loud snores snapped me out of my thoughts.
Lately, Eric has been busy working at night, developing an app that would compete with
Instagram. He worked on the app all night long and tried sleeping early in the morning before
going to his classes.

I grabbed a bag of Cheetos and a can of Pepsi from the pantry and hurriedly ate my
breakfast. While eating, I accidentally spilled Pepsi on my shirt. It was my third sign for the
day, and I knew instantly that my day was bound to be bad. While searching through my closet
for a new shirt, my phone rang out very loud, causing Eric to wake up.

“Fuck!” Eric groaned before he started moaning about how hard it was to get a decent
sleep in his room.

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My heart pounded fast when I saw the caller. It was my mom. She barely called me due
to the expensive call rates. She preferred texting me on WhatsApp instead. I knew something
was wrong instantly.

“E ka ro, ma,” I said to her on the phone. E ka ro means “Good morning” in a formal
tone in Yoruba. We have different words for addressing older people, agemates, and younger
people. Our language is gender-neutral, but we never play with respect. Respecting older
people is the basis of our tradition.

“Good morning. I am calling to tell you about your father’s condition. He is very sick,”
she told me. “He has been sick for a while, but we chose not to tell you anything in order not
to distract you from your studies. His condition became worse yesterday, and we rushed him
to the hospital. The doctor did some tests on him and said he needs to get a kidney transplant
as soon as possible.”

I took two quick breaths. “How much does the transplant cost?”

“It will cost us around twenty million naira.”

I converted the cost to dollars, and it was around $52,000. There was no way I could
raise such an amount of money within a short time. I got a monthly stipend of $500 from the
college. Even if I chose not to touch a cent from my stipends, I would have to save for one
hundred and four months before I could afford to pay for my dad’s kidney transplant.

“I will try my best to raise money for his treatment,” I told my mom.

My mom sobbed again. “The doctor said he has to get the kidney transplant as soon as
possible. I don’t want him to die.”

I knew my mom quite well. She was not emotionally strong and was hypertensive. I
thought of the time she had a heart attack after my elder sister died of tuberculosis. It took her
a couple of months before she made a full recovery. She almost committed suicide after my
younger brother died too. She was an empathetic person and got emotionally upset quickly.

I knew I had to say something to make her feel calm if I did not want to lose both of
my parents. Knowing my mom fully well, she might try to harm herself.

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“Don’t worry. I will send the money for dad’s kidney transplant to you before the end
of this month,” I said in a confident tone. It was the best thing I could do, even though I had no
idea how I would gather $52,000 before the end of the month.

She stopped sobbing. “How will you get the money?”

“I have many rich friends in this school,” I lied. My rich classmates were arrogant snobs
who would rather chop off their heads than publicly associate themselves with a black student
in need. “My friends will give me the money. Many of them are either multi-millionaires or
billionaires. $52,000 is nothing to them.”

My mom sounded much better. “Thank you, my son. May the good Lord keep blessing
you and your generous friends.”

I hung up on her and called my younger sister instantly. “Hello, Dunni. I want you to
hide all the knives in the kitchen and get rid of all the drugs we have in the house. Make sure
you always monitor mommy. Don’t allow her to be alone,” I instructed Dunni before I hung
up.

Eric could not understand the conversation because we talked in Yoruba, but he knew
something was wrong because of my facial expression.

“Hey man, you’re okay?” he asked.

I nodded my head. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

The reality was that I was not okay. I needed to find a way to get $52,000 before the
end of the month. I checked the calendar. The date was October 4, and I had to find a way to
raise $52,000 before October 31. I had twenty-seven days to raise the cash.

“Damn it! This fucking app keeps lagging. Fuck!” Eric groaned. I ignored him. My
father’s life was at stake.

I went to the soundproof bathroom I shared with Eric and called Jada immediately.
Whenever I had a problem, she was always the first person I told about it because she had a
way of making me feel better.

“My father is dying, Jada,” I cried. “He is in the hospital dying right now.”

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“Slow down, Josh. What is wrong with him?”

“He needs a kidney transplant urgently, Jada. The doctor said he would die if he
doesn’t get the transplant soon. We need $52,000 for his surgery, and I only have $573. I
don’t want to watch him die, Jada. I have already lost two of my siblings because my family
could not afford their medical bills. I don’t want my father to die too.”

Jada sounded nervous. “Oh my God! How will you get the money? What will you do
now, Josh?”

“I have no idea. I can’t even ask anyone here for help because they are all arrogant
snobs. I don’t know what to do.”

“Be calm, Josh. Don’t do anything stupid. We will find a way. We always do.”

I took a deep breath to calm myself. Crying would not make my father get better. I
needed to be calm and find a way to raise the money required for the surgery.

I went to my Global Business Issues class wearing a worried look. David instantly
noticed that something was wrong as soon as he saw me.

“Are you okay?” he asked me.

I shook my head. “My father is dying, and there is nothing I can do to help him. He
needs $52,000 for his surgery, and there’s no way I can raise that amount of money.”

David seemed genuinely concerned. “I’m sorry.”

“I already watched two of my siblings die because my parents could not afford to pay
their medical bills. I won’t sit around and watch my father die as well because of money.”

David squeezed my shoulder to offer me comfort. “I have $1,200 saved up in the

bank. I know it’s not much, but it can help.”

I wanted to turn down his offer, but beggars had no choice. I could not let my father
die because of my pride. “Thank you, David.”

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I mentally calculated the money I had. Out of the $52,000 needed for the surgery, I
had $573, and David had offered to give me $1,200. I still needed $50,227. I exhaled. Just
like Jada said, I would find a way out. I would not sit idly and watch my father die.

I got the shock of my life the following day when I returned to my dorm after my
lectures. While at the door, I overheard Eric Walters talking loudly. I was not surprised
because I was used to seeing Eric talking to his computer. The guy was a crazy tech genius.

I froze when I heard a burst of female laughter. I looked at the door to be sure I was in
the right room. Eric never brought women to the room. I was sure the guy was still a virgin
because he barely interacted with humans. He was always reading or doing geeky stuff on his
computer.

I unlocked the door using my keycard and gasped in shock when I saw Eric and Jada
together. Jada threw herself at me immediately she saw me.

She kissed me. “Josh! It’s so good to see you again.”

I was confused. Why was Jada in Beverly Hills? The girl lived in fucking Detroit.
How did she even locate my dorm? I had so many questions.

“Jada, how did you get here?” I asked after I managed to get out of her tight embrace.

“You once told me about your dorm.”

“Yes, but why are you here?”

Eric cleared his throat and stepped out of the room. “I think I should give you guys a
minute to talk.”

“I’m sorry, Jada,” I apologized. “I’m just so confused. You’ve never been to Beverly
Hills.”

She rolled her eyes and handed over a brown envelope to me. I opened it and found a
bundle of $100 notes. “I got worried when you told me about your father’s health. I sold my
car and pawned some pieces of jewelry. There is $17,210 in that envelope. I decided to hand
it over to you personally because you told me you were lonely and had no friends. I wanted to
be with you during this period and comfort you.”

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I was speechless as tears welled up in my eyes. I did not even know what to say. I
knew how much she loved her car. She got it as her 16th birthday gift, and it was the last gift
she got from her father before he died.

“But the car means a lot to you.”

She shrugged. “Your father’s life is more important. Besides, I can always buy
another car in the future. I won’t sit idly and let your father die, Josh.”

I embraced her tightly. “I love you, Jada. I love you so much. Thank you.”

Jada spent the next three days in my dorm, and she met David Lewinson, who fell in
love with her at first sight.

“I’m so glad Josh has you in his life,” she told David when he visited me. “I was
worried about him when he told me most of his classmates were arrogant snobs.”

David smiled. “Josh is a good friend. I enjoy spending time with him.”

They chatted a bit until David decided to leave.

He pulled me aside as I escorted him out. “That is a good woman, Josh. Don’t hurt
her. I don’t know about Melina, but this girl loves you a lot. She looks at you the same way
you look at Melina. Don’t hurt her.”

I took a deep breath. “I won’t hurt her.”

The next few days were uneventful. Jada traveled back to Detroit while I kept
applying for every financial aid I saw online. In our Global Business Issue class, I sat next to
David as we waited for the professor to arrive. Dmitri entered the lecture room a few minutes
afterward with a bunch of elite male students.

He was about to sit next to Mark when he saw me. He exchanged few words with
Mark, who looked stupefied before he came to sit next to me. Unlike our Financial Decision-
Making class which only had ten registered students, our Global Business Issues class had

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more than fifty students. Each student watched in shock as Dmitri left his usual seat with the
elites to sit next to me.

“Hey, how are you?” he asked as he sat down. He ignored David, who looked stunned.

“I’m fine. How are you too?”

I kept quiet when Professor Muller barged into the lecture room. She seemed quite
angry.

“What’s wrong? You look moody,” Dmitri observed.

“Professor Muller looks moody too,” I pointed out. I did not want to tell him about my
problem. We had only known each other for a brief time, and it would not be right for me to
bother him with my problems.

“Mark dumped her last night,” Dmitri told me.

I gasped in shock. “Mark? As in Mark the elite?”

Dmitri chuckled. “Yeah.”

I was surprised that a student was in a relationship with the strictest professor in the
entire college. Professor Muller was a raging misandrist who never ceased to degrade men in
her classes. She hated anyone with a dick and never stopped complaining about how the world
became a mess because of men. Her lectures lasted for two hours, and she always spent an hour
criticizing men before teaching us during the remaining one hour.

“Were they in a relationship? That woman hates men more than anyone I’ve ever seen.”

“Mark and Viktor placed a bet of $1,000 while drunk. Mark bragged that he would bang
Professor Muller and record their sex tape. Viktor thought it was impossible. Mark got close to
her because of the bet, and after they had sex, he broke up with her. He shared her sex tape on
the BBC WhatsApp group chat last night,” Dmitri explained. “I think she’s still angry that he
broke up with her.”

“Holy shit!”

Professor Muller banged her hand on the table. “Out of my class now, Dmitri and Josh.
You can continue your conversation outside.”

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Dmitri laughed and stuck out his tongue before he walked out of the class. I turned back
to look at David. He looked disappointed and shook his head ruefully.

When we were outside the class, Mark showed me the sex tape. Professor Muller was
jerking beneath Mark, begging him to go harder and faster. “That woman misses Mark's dick.”

I laughed but did not reply to him. First, I heard that my dad needed a kidney transplant.
Then I got kicked out of a lecture room for the first time in my entire life. Surely my life could
not be any worse.

“You wanna talk about whatever is bothering you?”

I nodded my head.

“Cool. Let’s head to the restaurant. I’m hungry.”

We went to the restaurant and ordered two cups of tea and a couple of snacks.

“Tell me, Josh. What is wrong with you? Did you lose your dick overnight?”

“It’s a family problem,” I said. “My dad needs to get a kidney transplant as soon as
possible, and I need to raise $52,000 before the end of this month. I don’t know what to do to
earn that amount of money. I’m going crazy.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

I sighed. “Yet, some people claim money doesn’t buy good health. If I had money to
pay for my dad’s transplant, he wouldn’t be in the hospital dying right now.”

Dmitri was silent. I continued, “I watched two of my siblings die because we couldn’t
afford their medical bills. I can’t let that happen to my father. I am sick of watching my family
members die because of our poverty.”

I broke down openly and began sobbing. It felt like history was repeating itself.

“How desperate are you?”

“I am ready to do anything, Dmitri. Anything!”

“I can help you,” he said in a calm voice. “I won’t lend you any money, but I can teach
you how to make your own money.”

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There was an eerie silence. The way he said he could teach me how to make money
seemed suspicious to me.

“I’m ready to do anything,” I said to him. “I can’t allow my father to die.”

“Are you good at keeping secrets, Josh?” he asked me.

I nodded my head.

“Good! How do you think I make my own money?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. David said you were a student in need, but I find it hard to
believe. You drive a Rolls Royce Wraith and move with the elites, so I assume you have a
billionaire father secretly bankrolling you.”

“The only thing I inherited from my father is his last name.”

“I don’t understand. If you don’t have rich parents, how are you able to afford your
lifestyle?” I asked him.

He looked around briefly to ensure that no one was looking at us. Then he opened his
wallet and handed over fourteen black credit cards to me without a word. I checked the names
on the credit cards. Jacob Grey, Edward Peterson, and others. None of the names on the credit
cards was Russian.

“Why do you have so many credit cards? Are you a thief?”

“I’m not a thief. I’m an opportunist.”

I snorted. “Yeah, like that makes a difference. You are basically stealing from other
people. Don’t you have any conscience?”

“Keep your voice down,” Dmitri hissed. “Mention five billionaires in the world today
that did not get their hands dirty to reach where they are. Even Edward Morrison in our class
admitted that he falsified financial reports to lure more investors to his company.”

“Yeah, but that is different. The investors even made profits afterward. But you’re only
stealing from people.”

Dmitri shook his head. “Do you see the way these affluent students look down on poor
people? I was once like you. I was wretched when I got here. My classmates wore outfits that

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could feed my mom and me for an entire month. I got tired of living that way. It doesn’t matter
if you’re intelligent or hardworking. You will end up working for these elites. Look at Bill
Gates, many of his classmates were more intelligent than he was, yet some are his employees
now. I got tired of spending my life worrying about bills.

There is no opportunity for an average person to become wealthy in this country. If you
get a job that pays you $200,000 in a year, you will have to work for 5,000 years without
spending any part of your salary or paying tax to become a billionaire. Yet, Jeff Bezos makes
more than $150,000 every minute. Those kids in our class can make millions in a single day,
depending on the stock market.

Working regular jobs from 9 am to 5 pm will never make you rich, Josh. You will only
earn enough money to pay your bills and afford down-payments for your mortgage. You need
to get your hands dirty to move with the elites. Working at KFC will never make you as rich
as Jeff Bezos, not when your yearly income at KFC isn’t even up to the amount of money he
makes in a single minute.”

I pondered on what Dmitri said. He was right. There was no job I could get that would
make me as rich as Edward Morrison. Not when he had billionaire parents and was personally
worth over $5 billion. Even if I got a job that paid me $1 million every year, it would take me
five thousand years to be as rich as Edward Morrison. The society was built in a way that
separated the elites from the masses. The wealthy people got wealthier daily, while the regular
people remained the same.

“But how did you get those credit cards? Did you steal them?”

He shook his head. “No. These are cloned credit cards.”

“What do you mean?”

“The owners of the credit cards still have their credit cards with them, but they have no
idea that I have cloned versions of their cards with me. I try to match their spending patterns
with the cards so that they will never be suspicious,” he explained.

“How do you match the credit cards with their spending patterns?”

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“Well, I don’t use a gay man’s credit card at a female strip club because it will raise a
red flag. To avoid suspicion, I only use the cloned cards at places that the owners of the card
regularly visit.”

He pushed a card towards me. It belonged to Linda Piper. “This card belongs to a lady
named Linda Piper. I monitored her for a while and observed that she loved shopping at Chanel
and Burberry. She never shops at Dior or Gucci. Therefore, whenever I make use of her card,
I always ensure that I shop at Chanel and Burberry to avoid raising any red flags.”

I nodded in understanding and pushed the card back to him. “I don’t understand. How
do you make money if you only use credit cards to buy clothes at stores?”

Dmitri chuckled. “Good question. I know several retailers across the country. I sell the
items bought with the cloned credit cards at a lesser price to the retailers, and they pay me in
cash. At the end of the day, everyone is happy. The retailers get quality goods at lesser prices
while I get free cash. I always ensure the retailers pay me in cash to avoid any red flags. Bank
transfers always leave a paper trail behind, and they can easily be traced.”

I swallowed hard. I knew I was treading the wrong part, but I could not stay away. My
conversation with Dmitri changed my life. I did not just want to spend my life struggling to
pay bills. I wanted to start living life to the fullest. Earning monthly salaries would never make
me as rich as my classmates.

A sudden thought flashed through my mind. “Why are you trying to establish hotels in
Africa?” I asked him. I remembered our first conversation when he asked me about the labor
system in Nigeria.

“I want to leave legacies behind for my children. I want to build a company that my
kids can inherit. Your kids can never inherit your job at Apple or Microsoft, irrespective of
your position. Once you are dead, they will give your job to another qualified candidate, but
you can easily pass your shares down to your children once you own a company. Right now, I
have six hotels across Europe and America. Besides, everyone is always curious about how I
make money. I can’t tell them I’m a fraudster. Rather, I tell them that I am an investor and brag
about some of my assets.”

I concluded that Dmitri was smart. Unlike other rich kids who loved to flaunt their
wealth and spend money at designer stores, Dmitri built companies with the money he earned

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illegally. Dmitri was a strategist. He lived his life like it was a game of chess. Before he made
a move, he would have thought of the long-term effect and the immediate effects.

“Will I be able to make enough money for my father’s medical bill?” I asked.

“We target high profile people who have huge or even unlimited credit limits. Just one
black credit card is enough to transform your life.”

I noticed that he said we at the beginning of his statement. It clearly meant that he did
not work alone.

I raised my eyebrows. “We?”

Dmitri looked like he had said more than he intended. “Yes. I am not alone. I have a
couple of partners, and I will introduce them to you tonight. My partners must accept you
before we can work together. I can’t do anything without their consent. But before I talk to
them on your behalf, I need to know if you have decided yet. Are you sure you wanna do this?”

I knew without a doubt that Harry and Wang were among his partners. They were the
only students in need that drove Bugattis. I briefly wondered who the other members were. I
pushed the thoughts to the back of my mind and weighed my options carefully. Either I engaged
in fraud or sat idly and watched my father die like my siblings because of insufficient funds. I
made up my mind.

“I’m in,” I told Dmitri. “Why are you nice to me anyway?”

“Because we’re both bastards. America treats black people like bastards, and my father
refuses to acknowledge me publicly because of my status as a bastard.”

“Oops!”

He chuckled. “It doesn’t hurt anymore anyway. As a kid, I used to crave a father figure
in my life, but not anymore. These days, I’m only concerned about making my mother happy
and building a legacy for my children.”

“Fair enough.”

Dmitri and I talked for a while before we agreed to meet later in the evening.

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CHAPTER SIX

Royal College has a world-class dormitory because of the caliber of the college’s
students, but despite this, a couple of students still prefer to live in private apartments. Some
rich students choose to live in the dormitory for social interaction reasons because many of
them had been homeschooled their entire life and needed to make friends. Some students live
in other cities. That is the main reason there is a huge helipad on the campus. Many Royal
College students fly to LA every morning in their private helicopters for their lectures.

Dmitri lived in a huge mansion in Beverly Hills. He told me while we were in his Rolls
Royce Wraith that he lived in the dormitory during his first year before he got rich enough to
buy his mansion, which he shared with his partners.

As we drove to his mansion, I could not stop thinking of my life. Dmitri’s neighborhood
houses were the types of houses I only saw on TV (in reality shows or movies). I compared
Dmitri’s neighborhood to the neighborhood I lived in Detroit with Aunt Moji. The difference
was clear. There were many abandoned and ruined houses in my Detroit neighborhood, but in
Dmitri’s neighborhood, everywhere was beautiful, and the mansions looked exotic. I noticed
that many of Dmitri’s neighbors drove fancy cars. During the drive, different exotic cars
zoomed past us—Porsche, Bentley, etc. In Aunt Moji’s neighborhood, you only saw angry
poor people, drug dealers, and antisocial fifteen-year-old kids wielding guns.

I said to myself, “I will not remain poor. I will not let my kids suffer like me.”

Being poor may not be noticeable when poor people surround you, but the moment you
get the chance to be in the circle of rich people, your poverty will become very glaring. I mean,
when you drive a Toyota in a neighborhood where many of your neighbors drive Kia cars, you
may not feel poor, but when you visit communities where teenagers drive Bugatti and Ferrari
cars, you will be reminded of how poor you are.

“Rich folks live differently,” I muttered to myself.

Dmitri chuckled. “I told you. Life is different when you are rich. Working at KFC will
never make you rich enough to buy an apartment in this kind of neighborhood. Hard work
doesn’t make people rich anymore. Smart work is the new trend. You need to find a way to
earn money even while sleeping.”

Dmitri pulled over in front of a huge white mansion.

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I gasped. “Please don’t tell me you own this place.”

He chuckled and maneuvered the car into his garage. “I do.”

“Holy shit! How much did you buy this mansion?”

“$13 million.”

My jaw dropped open. The way he mentioned $13 million casually made me want to
bash something. “You made all that money from credit card fraud?”

He shook his head. “Not just credit card fraud. We do other things too—both legal and
illegal. Don’t forget I told you that I have other legal investments where I earn money. My
hotels are doing well.”

If the mansion had stunned me, the garage made me speechless. There were a dozen
cars by different manufacturers. Luxury cars! I could see the matching Bugatti cars owned by
Harry and Wang in the garage.

“Do you own all these cars?”

“No. I only own this wraith, the Porsche Panamera, and the Maybach. The other cars
belong to my partners.”

I swallowed hard. My father was dying in the hospital because I could not afford his
medical bills, while my classmate lived in a $13 million mansion and had a garage filled with
luxury cars worth millions.

“I’m really envious of you. Why don’t you drive your remaining cars to the college?”

Dmitri pressed a button on his car key to lock the doors. “I don’t like to attract too much
unnecessary attention to myself. Besides, I only drive the wraith to campus because the elites
will rather die than associate themselves with someone that drives a Toyota.”

We strode into Dmitri’s mansion together. Every step we took reminded me of my

poverty, and I kept getting sad as I walked. I was fully depressed by the time I entered his living
room. No adjective in the dictionary could describe the sheer luxury of Dmitri’s living room.
The sofas, wall portraits, and everything else in the room looked beautiful. I felt too dirty to sit
on his expensive couch. I was lost in my thoughts as I stared around his living room.

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He must have guessed my thoughts. He said in a faint voice, “It is not a sin to be born
poor, but it is a sin to choose to remain poor.”

I killed the little conscience I had left. I did not care about hurting anyone if it would
give me the chance to live a luxury lifestyle like Dmitri.

My thoughts were interrupted when his partners strode into the living room. I could
recognize Wang and Harry. I was stunned to see Alicia. Why would Alicia live in a house filled
with fraudsters? Harry had his hands wrapped around her closely. She wore a crop top and a
bum short that hugged her hips tightly and showed her long smooth legs. She was a new money
student, and I wondered if she knew her boyfriend’s occupation.

There was another lady next to Wang. I could not recognize her because she was not a
Royal College student. She looked biracial, a combination of black and Asian. She reminded
me of Karrueche Tran, my celebrity crush. She looked like she was in her late teens.

“I’m sure you already know Harry, Wang, and Alicia.” Dmitri pointed to young
Karrueche. “This beautiful lady is Naomi.” I could have sworn that Naomi winked at me, but
it happened quickly.

I saw the way Wang stared at Naomi when Dmitri mentioned her name. It was obvious
that Wang had a thing for her. I did not care anyway. I had always had a crush on Karrueche,
and I would not let Wang’s obsession take away the closest person to Karrueche I could ever
get. I chided myself. Wang had a Bugatti, while I could not even afford my father’s medical
bills. No lady in her right mind would choose a guy who could not afford a scooter over a guy
that owned a Bugatti.

I wanted to ask Dmitri if Alicia and Naomi were also involved in fraud but did not know
how to phrase my question properly.

Dmitri guessed my thoughts. “Everyone here knows what I do. They are all my
partners.”

My jaw fell open. “But Alicia is rich. Why is –?” I swallowed the rest of my question
when I saw the warning glare on Harry’s face. The guy looked like he was ready to murder me.

“We all have our stories,” Dmitri said.

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“Wait!” Harry cut in. “How does he know we’re partners? Why did you bring him
here?”

“I brought him here because he’s gonna be our new team member,” he explained.

“Do I need to remind you of our basic rule? We agreed that we wouldn’t involve
outsiders in our business.”

“You broke the rule first when you told your girlfriend about us.”

Harry pulled Alicia to him so tight that I wondered if she could breathe properly. “How
much were you earning before Alicia joined us? How much do you earn now? The only reason
we got successful is because of Alicia. Without her, we will still be earning a few thousand
every month.”

“I am not discrediting her achievements. I only brought that up to prove my point.”

“You have no point to prove. Nigerians are highly religious people. What if he wakes
up someday and decides that God has whispered to him to confess his sins and goes to the FBI
to report us? What are you going to do then?”

Harry was right, Nigerians are extremely religious people, but I did not snitch on the
gang. Someone else did.

Dmitri was about to speak, but I cut in. “I will never do that. My father’s life is at stake.
I need to find a way to raise money to pay his medical bills.”

Harry marched out of the living room in quick strides and returned with some bundles
of money. He threw five bundles at me. “How much do you need? Will $50,000 be enough?
Do you need more?”

Dmitri grabbed his collar. “Are you crazy? After he pays his father’s bills, what next?
He will return to living as a scholarship student and continue struggling with bills for the rest
of his life. Is that what you want?”

“I don’t care. Neither should you.”

Alicia stood between them because they looked like they were about to fight. Naomi’s
eyes were on me. Wang’s eyes were on Naomi.

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Now that I think of it, I made a huge mistake by not accepting Harry’s money. Before
I saw Dmitri’s mansion, all I wanted was money to pay my father’s medical bill. I should have
taken the $50,000 cash from Harry. I should have used the money to pay my father’s medical
bill, but I did not do that. I had just seen Dmitri’s $13-million mansion and his million-dollar
garage.

I wanted to be rich like him. I wanted to have a mansion that had a swimming pool. I
wanted to have a garage worth several million too. I wanted to wear Gucci and Dior clothes to
classes. I did not want to continue living the way I was living. I might have accepted the money
if Harry had offered it to me the previous day before seeing Dmitri’s mansion and garage.

Dmitri took a deep breath. “He reminds me of myself. I watched my mom battle with
cancer for years without being able to do anything to help. I know what it is like to be poor.
You all do too. Wang, you wore two faded shirts to campus every day before I made you my
partner.

Harry, you told me how you went hungry several times in the past because of poverty.
Naomi, remember when you had to work for several hours at a grocery store just to earn the
minimum wage. Have you all forgotten where you came from?”

“It is none of my business. We have a golden rule. No outsiders are allowed. Period!”

“Fuck you!”

They lunged at each other, and everyone else managed to separate them. Harry was
bleeding from his lips while Dmitri had a cut on his left eyebrow.

“Stop acting like kids! Why don’t we all take a vote and decide if the new kid stays?”
Naomi suggested.

Everyone except Harry murmured in agreement.

“If you don’t want – Hold on, what is his name?” Naomi asked.

“Josh,” I replied.

“If you don’t want Josh on the team, raise your hands.”

I said a silent prayer to God. My future depended on their votes. Harry raised his left
hand immediately. Alicia did the same because she was loyal to him. I waited for Wang to raise

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his hands, but he did nothing. I was not even sure he heard the question. He was more focused
on Naomi’s face than her question.

“If you want Josh to join the team, raise your hands.”

Naomi raised her hand first. Dmitri did the same. We all turned to Wang. He slowly
raised his hand.

“Yes!” I screamed. I felt like I had just won a lottery.

In life, there were always occasional frictions among families, friends, and partners, but
in our team, we never held grudges past an hour. Harry and Dmitri hugged each other after the
vote, and they shook hands to show that all was settled. Harry apologized to me, and just like
that, we buried the hatchet.

CHAPTER SEVEN

After Harry’s apology, Dmitri led me to his room to explain how the team operated.
Dmitri and Naomi were the pioneers. When they started working together, they only
specialized in credit card fraud.

Dmitri lived a miserable life as a student in need at Royal College while Naomi did
part-time shifts at three different stores to earn enough money to study fashion design at
Beverly Hills Design Institute. He became interested in credit card fraud after watching a movie
titled Plastic, which told the story of some college students who engaged in credit card fraud.
He did lots of research on credit card fraud.

Once he had conducted enough research, he realized that he needed partners to succeed.
To gain access to credit cards, he needed people who worked at grocery stores, gas stations, or
bars because most of their customers paid with cards.

“How did you meet Naomi?” I asked him.

“I met her a few days after I had completed my research on credit card fraud. We met
at a grocery store. I saw a Beverly Hills Design Institute flyer on her desk as she scanned my
purchases. I asked if she was interested in studying at the college, then she told me she could
not afford the tuition even though it was her dream college.

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It was at that time that I knew I had hit the jackpot. Desperate people will do anything
to achieve their dreams. I told her that I had a plan that could make her rich within three months.
She seemed interested. I waited until her shift was over, and we exchanged our phone numbers.
I told her about my plan the next day.”

Dmitri convinced Naomi to join him. He assured her that she would earn enough money
to study at her dream college after a few months. He gave her a skimmer and taught her how
to attach it to the POS terminal at the grocery store where she worked.

Within a month of working together, they cloned more than 100 cards, but Dmitri was
not satisfied. Most of the credit cards they were able to clone had low credit limits. People who
had credit limits of $1,000 would quickly notice purchases on their cards, but people with credit
limits of $500,000 would barely notice anything. He needed more partners to have access to
more credit cards. He would be able to make more money if he had access to more credit cards.

He used his hacking skills to hack the emails of the students in need at Royal College
to know those who were desperate enough to do anything for money. That was how he got to
know of Wang’s condition.

“When I hacked Wang’s student email account, I realized that he had applied for several
financial aids and student loans. It seemed odd to me because he was a scholarship student and
the college gave all scholarship students monthly stipends of $500. I wondered why he needed
extra money.

I got close to him, and he confided in me that he needed money to pay off his brother’s
debt. His elder brother had stolen from a powerful Chinese drug lord and absconded with the
stolen money. The drug lord threatened to annihilate Wang’s family if he did not get his money
back. Since his brother was nowhere to be found, it became Wang’s responsibility to find a
way to clear his brother’s debt and keep his parents and siblings safe.

“Wang applied for those loans to pay off the money his brother stole from the drug
lord,” Dmitri explained. “I told him I had a plan that could make him rich enough to pay his
brother’s debts within three months.”

Wang agreed to work with Dmitri because he was desperate to pay off the money his
brother stole and keep his family safe.

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Dmitri told me that he found it easy to recruit Harry. Harry had a terrible cocaine
addiction problem. His war veteran father cut off his funds when he realized that Harry spent
all his money on drugs. Everyone at the college knew of Harry’s addiction problem, and it was
easy for Dmitri to convince him to join the team. He assured Harry that he would make enough
money to buy all the drugs he wanted.

Nothing made a junkie happier than drugs and money to buy more drugs. Harry joined
the team to make enough money to pay for his cocaine habit.

Harry got a job as a bartender while Wang worked part-time at a gas station. Within six
weeks of working together, they had access to more than 400 compromised cards. Apart from
her job at a grocery store, Naomi also worked as an escort. While her clients slept off after their
exhausting sex romps, she would use a skimmer to steal their card details.

They used the cloned credit cards to purchase luxury items such as wristwatches and
pieces of jewelry. Then they sold the luxury items to a retailer named Amir (one of Dmitri’s
close acquaintances) at lower prices. Everyone benefited from it. Amir got high-end fashion
items at a lesser price while Dmitri and his partners got cash that could not be traced, unlike
bank transfers which always left a trail.

“How did Alicia join the team?” I asked Dmitri. I still did not understand why a new
money student would engage in fraud while her parents were multi-millionaires.

“Harry told her about us after they started dating. Have you heard about StarCred?”

I nodded my head. StarCred was one of the most popular credit card companies in
America. “Yeah.”

“Alicia’s stepfather owns the company. We had a major financial breakthrough because
of her.”

“How?”

“StarCred organizes an annual ball every October, and every elite customer of the
company is invited. Last year, Alicia gave us the invitation cards to attend one of such events.
Before the ball, Alicia already gave us the information on the top cardholders that were invited
to the event. We studied each of them carefully, and during the event, we interacted with them.

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Some of those people had six or seven figures credit limits. Some even had unlimited credit
limits.”

“I don’t understand. Why does Alicia rob her stepfather’s company to make her
boyfriend rich? It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

“Yeah, it does,” Alicia said from behind.

Dmitri and I whirled around in shock. We did not know when she entered the room.

“What are you doing here, Alicia?” Dmitri demanded.

“I figured out you will be giving him an orientation about us. I don’t want you to tell
him my story. I will tell him myself.”

Dmitri nodded in understanding. “I will be right back.” He disappeared, leaving me in

the room with Alicia.

I shifted as far as possible from her. I did not want Harry barging into the room, ripping
off my head for sitting too close to his lover.

“Relax. I don’t rape boys,” she snorted, sensing my obvious discomfort.

“I’m not scared of you. I’m scared of your boyfriend.”

She smiled. “Yeah, Harry acts overprotective all the time, and I love him for that.”

Her smile gradually disappeared as she told me her story. Her mother divorced her
biological father when she was only five years old. Two years after the divorce, her mother got
into a relationship with a Wall Street millionaire. They got married five months after their
courtship. Growing up, her stepfather always sexually abused her whenever her mother was
not at home.

“He ensures that the CCTV cameras are always turned off,” she sobbed. “He never put
his penis in me. He was smart enough not to do that because he knew that a doctor would detect
any painful penetration. He would tell me to watch porn with him or tell me to suck his dick.”

I reached around and placed a comforting arm across her shoulders. It took much
confidence for a woman to tell the story of her sexual harassment.

“Did you tell your mom about it?”

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“I told her, but she did not do anything for a long time. She only yelled at me to stop
lying. She loved Liam’s money too much, and she wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize her
marriage to him. She finally took me to see a doctor after a while. The doctor confirmed that
my hymen was intact and that there was no evidence that I was sexually molested.

I tried to explain to my mom that Liam never penetrated me. He only made me suck his
dick and watch porn with him. There was no way I could get any evidence of what he did to
me whenever my mom was away. He continued until I was twelve years old. At that age, I
began to fight back and struggle.”

After Harry had confided in her that he was into credit card fraud, she became
interested. She wanted to punish her stepfather for sexually abusing her as a child. She invited
Harry, Wang, Dmitri, and Naomi to the annual ball organized for the most elite cardholders at
StarCred.

During the ball, the team was able to target high-profile cardholders, and within three
months, they made more than $2,000,000. The team did not stop there. They began to engage
in other types of fraud, particularly BEC.

“You’re lucky, you know?”

“How?”

“The next annual ball is next week. You joined us at the right time.”

Alicia and I chatted a bit, and I got to know her better. She was born into a loveless
family and watched her parents divorce each other early before her mom married a man who
sexually abused her as a child. Harry was the only person that had ever shown her true love,
and she literally worshipped him. She stuck with him to the very end, even when we were
arrested, and her lawyer told her to tell the jury that Harry manipulated her into joining the
syndicate; she declined and remained loyal to Harry.

I slept at Dmitri’s house that night and got to know everyone better. I was able to
analyze their personalities by talking with them. I knew that Dmitri was kind and would do
anything for the people he loved. I knew that Naomi was cheerful and easy-going. She laughed
at every joke, even the lame ones. I realized that Harry had two addictions: one of them was
cocaine while the other was Alicia. He never seemed to let go of her hand all through the night.

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Harry was never the type to hide his feelings or to sugarcoat the truth. He always said whatever
he had in mind.

The only person I could not read was Wang. I got strange vibes from him. The only
thing I noticed about him was that he seemed to care about Naomi. Apart from that, he was
more of a loner. I always thought of quiet people as the most dangerous people on earth because
you could never tell what they were thinking, unlike extroverts who always expressed their
opinions. Wang knew how to hide his emotions well. He kept his face blank most of the time
except when he looked at Naomi. He always looked at her with tender eyes.

My assessment of Wang turned out to be right. He only cared about himself. He did not
hesitate to rat us out to the FBI. He turned on all of us to save himself.

Later that night, Dmitri told me about some of the basic rules of the team. One of the
most important rules was that no strangers could join or hear about our operations. Only Harry
and Dmitri had broken that rule by telling Alicia and me about the team. Another important
rule was that all our profits were shared equally. The third rule stated that all of us must live
under the same roof (this rule was particularly important whenever we engaged in BEC).

The fourth rule was the most important. Every fraudster knew they could get caught
anytime, and it was always essential to have a contingency plan. Even though all the computers
we used for hacking and fraud were encrypted, we still had a contingency plan.

Our contingency plan was a kill switch software that could be activated via Wang’s
wristwatch and a kill switch hardware behind the TV in the living room. All our computers
contained a kill switch software that would automatically delete all the files on every computer
once Wang activated it.

The kill switch hardware behind the sofa would shut off all the computers and destroy
them completely by causing them to overheat and explode. It sounded like a prolonged process,
but Dmitri told me that the entire process would only take three seconds.

The only way the FBI could arrest and convict a fraudster or internet hacker was if they
caught them working on their computers (unlocked). Even if the computers were locked, the
FBI had a supercomputer that could try guessing all possible passwords until it eventually
guessed the correct password. It could take days, weeks, months, or even years, but the FBI

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would always find a way to get it if you were considered to be a serious threat to national
security.

It took the government’s supercomputer six months to figure out Hammond’s password
(Hammond was a member of LulzSec). Hammond’s hacking skills were greater than any of
us. If he could get caught and the FBI could figure out his laptop’s password, then we were not
safe. That was the reason we had high-quality kill switch software and hardware. Even if the
FBI caught us working on our computers, all we needed was for Wang to activate the kill switch
software via his wristwatch, and within three seconds, the FBI would not have any evidence
against us.

I wondered why Dmitri entrusted such an essential task to Wang, but he said Wang was
the right person. Harry could not be trusted because he was a crackhead. He might accidentally
activate the kill switch software while high on drugs. Naomi and Alicia might panic when it
was time to activate the kill switch. Only Wang always seemed calm and cautious, which was
why the responsibility fell on him. That turned out to be Dmitri’s biggest mistake ever.

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