The face behind a popular catfish Twitter account with the username “KenyanKorean” has been unmasked.
Sharp-eyed cybernauts have identified the account’s real owner as one Lazarus Mamai, a Kenyan man living in Eldoret town.
Lazarus or Lazo, pretended to be a Kenyan-Korean lady purportedly residing in Seoul, South Korea.
Running on this fake narrative, the chap has been soliciting money from his unsuspecting followers, who saw the account as a worthy business link for electronic goods from South Korea.
“I like how my friends ask me to buy them things in Korea when I’m planning to come back home,” he writes in one tweet, baiting potential clients to approach him.
Surprisingly, hundreds fell victim to the con game and believed the account belonged to a lady.
It has also been established that the attractive profile photo on the account was downloaded from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Facebook Page during the Kenya-Seoul Coffee partnership in 2014.
Online records show that Lazarus previously worked with Soundcity Kenya and Tilja Club in Eldoret.
One obvious giveaway to his real identity was old tweets from the account, some of which contain critical personal details.
In one tweet from 2018, he seeks financial help from the State House to facilitate what he termed as a trip to represent Kenya abroad and includes his personal email address.
By the publishing of this post, the Twitter account is still active.
In fact, in his most recent tweet, the owner has rubbished reports that the account is bogus.
“Ignore these little boys idling on Twitter with nothing substantial to do. Now they are claiming that this account is not real. I wasn’t born with enough middle fingers to express how I feel about them,” the post reads.
What is catfishing?
Catfishing is when someone sets up a fake online profile to trick people who are looking for love, usually to get money out of them.
Below are some of the signs to guide you when spotting a catfish.
- You search for their name on the internet, but they don’t seem to exist. Or they do, but the photos don’t match the photos on their dating profile.
- They ask for money early into your conversation.
- They often proclaim “friendship”, despite only talking for a couple of days or weeks.
- They avoid face-to-face contact, either meeting up or video chats.
- They almost always seem to be a little bit too perfect for reality.
- Their stories sometimes conflict with each other or don’t quite add up.
