Factors Influencing Involvement in Cyber-Frauds in West Africa and the Implications for Policy
Button, Mark; Lazarus, Suleman; Hock, Branislav; Bugbilla Sabia, James; Pandey, Durgesh; Gilmour, Paul (2025) — European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research
Type: Journal Article
Country: United Kingdom
Tags: victim experience, law enforcement, platform policy, AI misuse, prevention, measurement
Methods: interview
This article examines cyber-frauds and scams as a significant problem linked to West Africa, particularly Nigeria and Ghana, and explores how such activity spreads beyond the perpetrators themselves. Drawing on 36 interv...
Fraud as Legitimate Retribution for Colonial Injustice: Neutralization Techniques in Interviews with Police and Online Romance Fraud Offenders
Lazarus, Suleman; Hughes, Mariata; Button, Mark; Garba, Kaina Habila (2025) — Deviant Behavior
Type: Journal Article
Country: United Kingdom
This catalog-style study investigates the rhetorical framing surrounding fraud as a form of legitimate retribution for colonial injustice. The analysis situates online romance fraud and related encounters with law enforc...
Love, Lies, and Larceny: One Hundred Convicted Case Files of Cybercriminals with Eighty Involving Online Romance Fraud
Soares, Adebayo Benedict; Lazarus, Suleman; Button, Mark (2025) — Deviant Behavior
Type: Journal Article
Country: Nigeria
This article analyzes 100 convicted cybercrime case files prosecuted by Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, with 80 cases involving online romance fraud. Many offenders engaged in multiple offenses, inclu...
Are fraud victims nothing more than animals? Critiquing the propagation of “pig butchering” (Sha Zhu Pan, 杀猪盘)
Whittaker, Jack M.; Lazarus, Suleman; Corcoran, Taidgh (2024) — Journal of Economic Criminology
Type: Journal Article
Country: United Kingdom
The article explores the growing phenomenon of romance scams as a particularly harmful form of cybercrime that exploits emotional vulnerability for financial gain. The authors position romance scams within the wider land...
Examining fifty cases of convicted online romance fraud offenders
Soares, Adebayo Benedict; Lazarus, Suleman (2024) — Criminal Justice Studies
Type: Journal Article
Country: Nigeria
Examining fifty cases of convicted online romance fraud offenders, presented in a catalog‑style format, offers a descriptive survey rather than a test of hypotheses. The work compiles anonymized case records drawn from o...
