Rationalizing online romance fraud: In the eyes of the offender

This study seeks to understand romance scam from the offenders' perspective and how they rationalize their motivations, opportunities and abilities towards the commission of the crime. To this end, we adopt the Motivation-Opportunity-Ability framework and the Rationalization dimension of the Fraud Triangle Theory. The study employed a qualitative methodological approach to analyze the opportunities presented by emerging technologies to cyber fraudsters amid socio-economic drivers. One is the interplay of various socio-economic factors being a major driving force behind the commission of cybercrime. These include peer recruitment and training, poverty, unemployment, low level of education and low income. The uniqueness of this study stems from the fact that it deviates from previous studies to investigate cybercrime from the perspective of the perpetrators. Again, this study is arguably one of the first to put all three dimensions of the MOA framework and the rationalization dimension of the Fraud Triangle to study romance scammers' behaviors.