Living Evidence Synthesis
Revision history
Grooming and Trust Development
Approved public versions are listed newest first. Drafts, unsuccessful generation attempts, and versions not yet published through this Research Insight are excluded.
Approved public versions
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Version 32
Automated evidence-grounded revision attempt 1. Initial version.
- Publications: 20 (-5)
- Evidence statements: 91 (-15)
- Cited sources: 20 (-5)
Sources removed: A Sinister Fattening: Dissecting the Tales of Pig Butchering and Other Cryptocurrency Scams; Do You Love Me? Psychological Characteristics of Romance Scam Victims; Romance baiting, cryptorom and ‘pig butchering’: an evolutionary step in romance fraud; Understanding Romance Fraud: Insights From Domestic Violence Research; and 1 more.
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Version 31
Initial version: consolidates and synthesizes the supplied reviewed evidence on grooming, trust development, linguistic tactics, pig‑butchering variants, victim experience, methodological patterns, and explicit research recommendations. No prior‑version evidence changes were applied because this is the first generated synthesis.
- Publications: 25 (+2)
- Evidence statements: 106 (+5)
- Cited sources: 25 (+2)
Sources added: A Sinister Fattening: Dissecting the Tales of Pig Butchering and Other Cryptocurrency Scams; From swipe to swindle: a narrative review of research on older adult victims of romance fraud; Grooming in online dating romance frauds and scams: A scoping review; Modus Operandi and Blockchain Analysis of Romance Scams: Cryptocurrency-Driven Victimization; and 8 more.
Sources removed: A Study on Romance Scam : The Current Situation and Effective Countermeasures; Distort, Extort, Deceive and Exploit: Exploring the Inner Workings of a Romance Fraud; El timo del amor. Estafas eróticas realizadas por mujeres en Costa Rica entre 1970 y 1990 publicadas en el periódico La República; How Do Crypto Flows Finance Slavery? The Economics of Pig Butchering; and 6 more.
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Version 30
Automated claim-level support repair round 1, correcting 5 passages from synthesis version 29.
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Version 29
Automated evidence-grounded revision attempt 1. Initial version. This synthesis reproduces the protected, audit‑verified passages verbatim where required and limits or removes previously overstated or unsupported claims (for example, it does not assert that intimate‑image exchange/sextortion is a typical conversion outcome unless directly supported). Added explicit linkage to methodological-gap findings that are present in the reviewed evidence (notably the shortage of empirical studies of ongoi...
- Publications: 23 (-5)
- Evidence statements: 101 (-23)
- Cited sources: 23 (-5)
Sources removed: Amor, dependencia y aislamiento: El impacto psicológico del romance scam; A Sinister Fattening: Dissecting the Tales of Pig Butchering and Other Cryptocurrency Scams; Epistolary Affect and Romance Scams: Letter from an Unknown Woman; Modus Operandi and Blockchain Analysis of Romance Scams: Cryptocurrency-Driven Victimization; and 1 more.
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Version 28
Initial version.
- Publications: 28 (-1)
- Evidence statements: 124 (+22)
- Cited sources: 28 (-1)
Sources added: Amor, dependencia y aislamiento: El impacto psicológico del romance scam; A Sinister Fattening: Dissecting the Tales of Pig Butchering and Other Cryptocurrency Scams; A Study on Romance Scam : The Current Situation and Effective Countermeasures; Devices of Textual Illusion: Victimization in Romance Scam E-Letters; and 6 more.
Sources removed: Butcher or be butchered: understanding the unwitting recruitment by cybercrime groups in China; Examining fifty cases of convicted online romance fraud offenders; Online Dating Scam Victims Psychological Impact Analysis; Romance baiting, cryptorom and ‘pig butchering’: an evolutionary step in romance fraud; and 7 more.
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Version 27
Automated claim-level support repair round 1, correcting 3 passages from synthesis version 26.
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Version 26
Automated evidence-grounded revision attempt 1. Initial version (no prior-version evidence changes).
- Publications: 29 (-4)
- Evidence statements: 102 (-20)
- Cited sources: 29 (-4)
Sources added: The victimology of online fraud: A focus on romance fraud victimisation.
Sources removed: Amor, dependencia y aislamiento: El impacto psicológico del romance scam; Devices of Textual Illusion: Victimization in Romance Scam E-Letters; HeartGuard VR: Immersive Romance Scam Education; More than Money: Examining the Potential Exposure of Romance Fraud Victims to Identity Crime; and 1 more.
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Version 25
Initial version: integrates and weights direct evidence across the reviewed corpus to synthesize how grooming creates trust in romance-related online fraud, summarize operational variants (including pig-butchering), describe victim harms and organizational dynamics, and identify major methodological limitations and explicit evidence gaps as reported by the sources.
- Publications: 33 (-8)
- Evidence statements: 122 (-38)
- Cited sources: 33 (-8)
Sources added: Amor, dependencia y aislamiento: El impacto psicológico del romance scam; Examining fifty cases of convicted online romance fraud offenders; How Do Crypto Flows Finance Slavery? The Economics of Pig Butchering; Modus Operandi and Blockchain Analysis of Romance Scams: Cryptocurrency-Driven Victimization; and 9 more.
Sources removed: A new type of victim? Profiling survivors of modern slavery in the online scam industry in Southeast Asia; A Study on Romance Scam : The Current Situation and Effective Countermeasures; Automatically Dismantling Online Dating Fraud; Distort, Extort, Deceive and Exploit: Exploring the Inner Workings of a Romance Fraud; and 17 more.
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Version 24
Automated claim-level support repair round 1, correcting 5 passages from synthesis version 23.
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Version 23
Automated evidence-grounded revision attempt 1. Initial version. This synthesis reproduces required protected passages verbatim and limits claims to those directly supported by the supplied evidence set. Where the audit flagged unsupported or overstated elements (for example, specific examples of fabricated biographies such as 'military identity' as a general claim, explicit assertions about sexual-extraction frequency, or staged small-test payments when not directly evidenced by the cited items...
- Publications: 41 (-2)
- Evidence statements: 160 (-10)
- Cited sources: 41 (-2)
Sources added: A new type of victim? Profiling survivors of modern slavery in the online scam industry in Southeast Asia; Online-Dating Romance Scam in Malaysia: An Analysis of Online Conversations between Scammers and Victims; Understanding Romance Scammers Through the Lens of Their Victims: Qualitative Modeling of Risk and Protective Factors in the Online Context; What do we know about online romance fraud studies? A systematic review of the empirical literature (2000 to 2021).
Sources removed: A Sinister Fattening: Dissecting the Tales of Pig Butchering and Other Cryptocurrency Scams; Epistolary Affect and Romance Scams: Letter from an Unknown Woman; Meeting you was a fake: investigating the increase in romance fraud during COVID-19; More than Money: Examining the Potential Exposure of Romance Fraud Victims to Identity Crime; and 2 more.