Skip to main content

Understanding Cybercrime in Developing Economies: Insights from Agona Swedru, Ghana

Obeng, Charles ; Kumah, Paul Kwasi ; Asiedu, Hubert Bimpeh ; Obeng Senior, Felix Awuah (2024) — E-Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences

View Original Source (opens in a new tab)

DOI: 10.38159/ehass.202451411 (opens in a new tab)

Type:   Journal Article
Country:   Ghana
Tags:   AI-Enabled Fraud, Cybercrime Prevalence, Financial Constraint, Ghana, Measurement, Offender Participation, Offender Tactics, Romance Scams, Socioeconomic Drivers, Unemployment, Youth
Citation tools
Download RIS Download BibTeX 


              
              

            

          

        


      

      

    

        
Transparency

        
Evidence and review status

        
This page contains AI-generated content. No human content review or subject-matter-expert review is recorded.

    


    

                    

                
Source basis

                

                    Downloaded PDF
                

            

                    

                
AI-generated page content

                

                    Yes
                

            

                    

                
Automated checks

                

                    Passed
                

            

                    

                
Administrative approval

                

                    Yes
                

            

                    

                
Human content review

                

                    Not recorded
                

            

                    

                
Subject-matter-expert review

                

                    Not recorded
                

            

            


    

        
            How this was prepared
        
        

                            

                    
Source basis

                    

                    
RSRC downloaded and privately stored a copy of the paper for internal analysis. The PDF is not offered to viewers from this page.


                                            
    
                                                            
  • 
                                    PDF added to RSRC:
                                    
                                
    • 
                                                    

                    
                                        

                

                            

                    
AI-generated page content

                    

                    
AI-generated research notes displayed on this page: Synopsis, Identified gaps, Methods, Limitations, Future work. The paper itself is not described as AI-generated.


                                            
    
                                                            
  • 
                                    Document analysis recorded:
                                    
                                
    • 
                                                            
  • 
                                    Page record updated:
                                    
                                
    • 
                                                    

                    
                                        

                

                            

                    
Automated checks

                    

                    
The current, source-bound synopsis passed the recorded versioned publication checks.


                                            
    
                                                            
  • 
                                    Checks completed:
                                    
                                
    • 
                                                    

                    
                                            

                            
                                View passed checks (3)
                            
                            
    
                                                                    
  • Length, completeness, repetition, refusal, boilerplate, and active-markup screening
    • 
                                                                    
  • Numerical claims checked against the available source text
    • 
                                                                    
  • English-source lexical grounding check
    • 
                                                            

                        

                                        

                

                            

                    
Administrative approval

                    

                    
The record is approved for public display, but a complete historical administrator action is not recorded.


                    
                                        

                

                            

                    
Human content review

                    

                    
No human review is recorded for the AI-generated content displayed on this page.


                    
                                        

                

                            

                    
Subject-matter-expert review

                    

                    
RSRC has not recorded review of this content by a subject-matter or methods expert.


                    
                                        

                

                    

    


    

        Review-state definitions

        Found a possible error?
        Request a correction.
    



    



              

        
                  

            
Synopsis

            
This study aims to assess how widespread cybercrime is in Agona Swedru and to identify the main factors that drive individuals toward such activity. A cross-sectional, quantitative survey was conducted with 397 participants who were selected through simple random sampling. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive frequencies, cross-tabulations, and linear regression to explore the prevalence of cybercrime and its potential determinants, providing both the scope of the issue and the relationships between socioeconomic conditions and cybercrime involvement. The results indicate that a notable portion of the surveyed population reports involvement in cybercrime, with online romance scams and financial fraud identified as the most common forms being practiced. The analysis highlights unemployment, financial constraints, and poverty as primary catalysts, suggesting that these economic pressures push some individuals to pursue cybercriminal activities as a means of achieving financial stability. The study thus links criminal behavior in the digital realm to broader socioeconomic hardship, underscoring a pattern in which economic distress can influence wrongdoing. To address these findings, the researchers recommend policy and programmatic measures aimed at reducing the economic pressures that facilitate cybercrime. Specifically, expanding employment opportunities through vocational training and job creation programs is proposed as a path to alleviate unemployment-related stress. In addition, establishing financial aid initiatives and counseling services is advised to help individuals manage financial pressures more effectively. Implementing these recommendations is expected to contribute to a more stable and supportive environment, thereby reducing the factors that drive cybercrime. By identifying unemployment and poverty as key drivers, the study enhances understanding of the motivations behind cybercrime in Agona Swedru and in similar contexts, offering insights for targeted interventions in comparable settings.

          

        
                  

            
Identified Gaps

            
The study identifies a local evidence gap on the prevalence and primary causes of cybercrime in Agona Swedru, where prior work suggested high youth involvement. It addresses this gap broadly, but does not provide victim-side evidence on romance-scam targets, harms, reporting, or recovery.

          

        
                  

            
Methods

            
A quantitative cross-sectional survey of 397 young people in Agona Swedru used simple random sampling and structured questionnaires. Respondents completed mostly five-point Likert-scale measures; questionnaires were distributed at internet cafés. The study used frequencies and crosstabulations to describe cybercrime participation and binary regression in SPSS v22 to test associations between cybercrime and financial constraint, unemployment, poverty, broken homes, and peer influence.

          

        
                  

            
Limitations

            
Findings are based on self-reported participation in illegal activities among young people recruited through internet cafés, which may limit disclosure accuracy and representativeness. The single-community, cross-sectional design supports associations rather than causal conclusions. The cybercrime measure combines engagement in offenses with possible victimization, making the outcome conceptually broad. Romance-scam results describe alleged perpetrators rather than victims or transaction-level scam processes.

          

        
                  

            
Future Work

            
Future research should assess whether employment, financial-support, and community/family-support interventions reduce participation in cybercrime among young people in Agona Swedru.

          

              

    
    

        
Related Research Insights

        

            See how this publication connects to RSRC's living evidence syntheses through current citations and research-topic mapping.