Romance Scam Research Center

“Simple job, high salary”: unveiling the complexity of scam-forced criminality in Southeast Asia

Luong, Hai Thanh (2025) — Humanities and Social Sciences Communications

Type: Journal Article Country: Global Tags: pig-butchering, scam-forced criminality, cyber-enabled crime, Vietnam, Southeast Asia, human trafficking, victim-offender overlap, transnational crime

This catalog-style entry surveys the phenomenon commonly framed as “simple job, high salary” and its role in scam-forced criminality in Southeast Asia. The framing gathers a spectrum of recruitment narratives, promises o...

Butcher or be butchered: understanding the unwitting recruitment by cybercrime groups in China

Luo, Qiaoyu; Zhao, Yun (2025) — Trends in Organized Crime

Type: Journal Article Country: China Tags: cybercrime, recruitment, unwitting involvement, cybercrime industrialisation, China, qualitative research, semi-structured interviews, money mules, AI misuse, risk factors

This piece examines Butcher or be butchered: understanding the unwitting recruitment by cybercrime groups in China within the broader context of online fraud and mediated communication. It outlines common patterns docume...

Shifting routines and the industrialisation of scams: the impact of Covid-19 on deception crimes in Hong Kong

Akartuna, Eray Arda; Yeung, Felix Sin Wai; Manning, Matthew; Bish, Alexandre (2025) — Trends in Organized Crime

Type: Journal Article Country: Hong Kong Tags: Deception, Fraud, Pig butchering, Romance scams, Covid-19, Hong Kong, Routine Activity Theory, Crime displacement, victim experience, risk factors, measurement, cross-cultural

This study analyzes how the Covid-19 crisis affected deception-related crime in Hong Kong by examining a period from February 2020 to June 2023. The researchers apply an Auto ARIMA time series approach to contrast crime...

The Deceptive Allure: Understanding and Combating Cryptocurrency Pig Butchering Scams

Krause, David (2025) — SSRN Electronic Journal

Type: Journal Article

The Deceptive Allure: Understanding and Combating Cryptocurrency Pig Butchering Scams provides a neutral, catalog-style examination of a form of online fraud that has emerged within cryptocurrency ecosystems. The work de...

The Imperfect ‘Perfect’ Fraudster: Exploring How Vulnerability Framing, Fraudster Identity, and Victim Attachment Shape Financial Risk Perception

Huang, Yidan; Yao, Rui (2025) — European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research

Type: Journal Article Country: Global Tags: romance scam, victim psychology, fraudster identity construction, vulnerability framing, risk perception, attachment avoidance, mixed-methods, deception theory, Romance scam, Fraudster identity, Vulnerability framing, Victim attachment, Risk perception, Impression Management Theory, Interpersonal Deception Theory, Adult Attachment Theory

This catalog-style synopsis describes a scholarly examination of the figure of the “imperfect yet seemingly perfect” fraudster, focusing on how vulnerability framing, fraudster identity, and victim attachment converge to...

A new type of victim? Profiling survivors of modern slavery in the online scam industry in Southeast Asia

Franceschini, Ivan; Li, Ling; Hu, Yige; Bo, Mark (2024) — Trends in Organized Crime

Type: Journal Article

This catalog entry examines the emergence within the online scam economy in Southeast Asia of a particular victim group—survivors of modern slavery who become entwined with organized illicit networks. It surveys how thes...

An Explorative Study of Pig Butchering Scams

Acharya, Bhupendra; Holz, Thorsten (2024) — arXiv (Cornell University)

Type: Journal Article Country: Global Tags: pig-butchering, romance scams, investment fraud, social engineering, cryptocurrency scams, online scams, abuse reports, scam lifecycle, victim experience, law enforcement, platform policy, AI misuse, prevention, measurement, data collection

This piece examines An Explorative Study of Pig Butchering Scams within the broader context of online fraud and mediated communication. It outlines common patterns documented in the literature, describes how offenders cu...

Bi-Directional Exploitation of Human Trafficking Victims: Both Targets and Perpetrators in Cybercrime

Sarkar, Gargi; Shukla, Sandeep K. (2024) — Journal of Human Trafficking

Type: Journal Article Country: Global Tags: cybercrime, human trafficking, cyber-enabled trafficking, romance scams, pig butchering, transnational organized crime, policy and law enforcement, SEZs and cross-border crime

Bi-Directional Exploitation of Human Trafficking Victims: Both Targets and Perpetrators in Cybercrime is presented as a scholarly entry in the Journal of Human Trafficking that situates trafficking within cybercrime ecos...

Connecting Chinese and American Scam Victims

Reiter, Jonathan; Team, Bitrace (2024) — SSRN Electronic Journal

Type: Journal Article Country: Global Tags: pig_butchering, romance_scam, cryptocurrency, on_chain_analysis, money_laundering, cross_border_scams, forensic_analysis, exchanges, pig-butchering, romance scam, on-chain analysis, money laundering, cross-border, forensic-research

Connecting Chinese and American Scam Victims examines how fraud experiences are shaped by cross-cultural and cross-border contexts, focusing on victimization in two national settings. The work surveys how digital platfor...

Crypto-Cognitive Exploitation: Integrating Cognitive, Social, and Technological perspectives on cryptocurrency fraud

Perdana, Arif; Jhee Jiow, Hee (2024) — Telematics and Informatics

Type: Journal Article Country: Global Tags: cryptocurrency fraud, cognitive vulnerability, social engineering, romance scams, pig butchering, DeFi scams, regulatory strategies, text analytics

Crypto-Cognitive Exploitation offers a catalog-style synthesis of how fraud in cryptocurrency environments emerges from the interplay of cognitive processes, social dynamics, and technological infrastructures. The volume...

“Simple job, high salary”: unveiling the complexity of scam-forced criminality in Southeast Asia

Butcher or be butchered: understanding the unwitting recruitment by cybercrime groups in China

Shifting routines and the industrialisation of scams: the impact of Covid-19 on deception crimes in Hong Kong

The Deceptive Allure: Understanding and Combating Cryptocurrency Pig Butchering Scams

The Imperfect ‘Perfect’ Fraudster: Exploring How Vulnerability Framing, Fraudster Identity, and Victim Attachment Shape Financial Risk Perception

A new type of victim? Profiling survivors of modern slavery in the online scam industry in Southeast Asia

An Explorative Study of Pig Butchering Scams

Bi-Directional Exploitation of Human Trafficking Victims: Both Targets and Perpetrators in Cybercrime

Connecting Chinese and American Scam Victims

Crypto-Cognitive Exploitation: Integrating Cognitive, Social, and Technological perspectives on cryptocurrency fraud

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