KÄRLEKENS PRIS - En crime script-analys av romansbedragares tillvägagångssätt och organisering

Abstract

Aims and objectives: The aim of this study is to contribute to a deeper understanding of the course of action in romance fraud. Furthermore, the purpose of this research is to study whether, and if so, in what way, the crime is organized. The aim is to answer this in a Swedish context. Following research questions are used to guide this study: - How are romance frauds committed? - In what types of constellations are romance frauds carried out? Methods and data: A qualitative case study approach was used to analyze nine different cases of romance fraud. The data contains court judgments and preliminary investigation reports from the last 10 years. To analyze the material, we used Crime Script analysis as an analytic strategy. Results: The main result in this study is that romance fraud follows a structure in terms of courses of action. By identifying nine vital steps we conclude that the crime act has a planning phase, interaction- and implementation phase and lastly an exit phase. This study concludes that romance fraud consists of a manipulating period (which most often lasts approximately one month) in which the perpetrator builds trust with the victim. This sequence is decisive for whether the victim will send money or not. The course of action is repeated several times with different victims and can be seen as something the perpetrator reasoned works and is rational in that sense, alternatively something the offender does out of routine. This study has identified that romance fraud can be committed through three different types of constellations (alone, through networks or formal organizations). The offenders that operate alone commit the crime both online and through physical meetings in Sweden. The perpetrators who are a part of a formal organization all have a connection to Nigeria and these frauds are only carried out online with no physical meetings. In these cases, we have been able to distinguish different types of network structures among the defendants which shows that formal organizations and networks can coexist.