African romance fraudsters justify targeting British women as revenge for colonialism, a new study has found.
Accra, the capital of Ghana, is known as a hub for organised groups including the notorious 'Sakawa Boys', who specialise in online crimes, including romance scams.
Typically, they spend months grooming vulnerable women on social media before asking for money to send money for imaginary medical emergencies or family crises.
Far from feeling guilty about their actions, fraudsters perceive tricking Brits and other Westerners as 'morally acceptable' and 'retribution' for the slave trade and the plundering of Ghana's mineral resources in the colonial period, the research found.
Dr Suleman Lazarus, a criminologist from the London School of Economics, said this pattern was common in other West African countries, including Nigeria, leading to a belief that taking part in online romance scamming is a 'commendable civic virtue'.
