An Anatomy of ‘Pig Butchering Scams’: Chinese Victims’ and Police Officers’ Perspectives
Han, Bing; Button, Mark (2025) — Deviant Behavior
Type: Journal Article
Country: United Kingdom
This article analyzes the hybrid romance–investment scam known as “pig butchering” (Sha Zhu Pan, 杀猪盘) from the perspectives of Chinese victims and police officers. Unlike traditional romance scams, pig butchering fuse...
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...
Policing cross-border fraud ‘Above and below the surface’: mapping actions and developing a more effective global response
Button, Mark; Hock, Branislav; Suh, Joon Bae; Koh, Chol Soo (2025) — Crime, Law and Social Change
Type: Journal Article
Country: United Kingdom
Tags: platform policy, AI misuse, measurement, cross-cultural
Cross-border fraud represents a global challenge, spanning forms such as online retail fraud, pyramid schemes, romance fraud, and pig butchering. While there is clear evidence that these abuses are expanding across borde...
Relationship fraud: Romance, friendship and family frauds
Button, Mark; Carter, Elisabeth (2024) — Journal of Economic Criminology
Type: Journal Article
Country: United Kingdom
Relationship fraud refers to intentional deception in which trust within intimate or interpersonal ties—romance, friendship, and family relationships—is exploited to obtain money, property, or other benefits. The topic c...
Online frauds: Learning from victims why they fall for these scams
Button, Mark; Nicholls, Carol McNaughton; Kerr, Jane; Owen, Rachael (2014) — Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology
Type: Journal Article
Country: Australia
Across many countries, online fraud has emerged as a major problem, affecting millions of people through a wide diversity of schemes that are carried out online in whole or in part. The article seeks to describe how exte...
