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Modelling the modus operandi of online romance fraud: Perspectives of online romance fraudsters

Abubakari, Yushawu (2024) — Journal of Economic Criminology

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DOI: 10.1016/j.jeconc.2024.100112 (opens in a new tab)

Type:   Journal Article
Country:   Poland
Tags:   Fake Profiles, Ghana, Modus Operandi, Money Mules, Offender Perspectives, Romance Scams, Sakawa, Techno Spirituality
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Synopsis

            
The study draws on an ongoing ethnographic project in Ghana. It used observations and informal, unstructured, and semi-structured interviews with 27 active adult romance-fraud offenders (15 men and 12 women), recruited through snowball sampling, gatekeepers, and rapport-building. The study identifies seven interconnected stages in African online romance fraud. Offenders prioritize relationship status to assess emotional vulnerability and reportedly target older divorced or widowed people. The model is based on a small group of Ghanaian offenders who targeted Western victims, so it may not represent fraud targeting other regions or domestic victims.

          

        
                  

            
Identified Gaps

            
Prior research has largely relied on victims, experts, and public posts, leaving offenders' own strategies and the cultural and spiritual dimensions of African romance fraud underexamined. African research is concentrated in Ghana and Nigeria, with less attention to other regions. The paper also identifies limited understanding of systematic offender approaches and how geography shapes modus operandi.

          

        
                  

            
Methods

            
The study draws on an ongoing ethnographic project in Ghana. It used observations and informal, unstructured, and semi-structured interviews with 27 active adult romance-fraud offenders (15 men and 12 women), recruited through snowball sampling, gatekeepers, and rapport-building. Data were collected from September 2021 to December 2022, translated from English and Dagbani where necessary, pseudonymized, and analysed through a hybrid inductive thematic-analysis process based on Braun and Clarke’s six steps. Participants reviewed the resulting stages for accuracy.

          

        
                  

            
Limitations

            
The model is based on a small group of Ghanaian offenders who targeted Western victims, so it may not represent fraud targeting other regions or domestic victims. It does not directly examine how the identified stages affect victims; victim impacts are interpreted through earlier research. These scope constraints limit generalizability and may omit global variation in romance-fraud strategies.

          

        
                  

            
Future Work

            
Conduct research with diverse offender groups across different sociocultural settings, and include victims from different regions. Such comparative work could test whether the seven-stage model applies beyond Ghanaian offenders targeting Western victims and capture a broader range of fraud strategies.

          

              

    
    

        
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