Cultures of No-Control: Communal Differential Association and the West African Fraud Problem

• In Event: Various types of cyberfraud

Abstract

Fraud has become a major problem in the Global North and there is evidence a significant volume of this fraud emanates from West Africa. This paper offers rare and original insights on the scale of active fraudsters and their wider support in Ghana and Nigeria by collecting and analysing data from 36 interviews with active fraudsters, law enforcement, government officials and NGOs from these countries, as well as from those they target. The analysis reveals there is a culture of “no control” in relation to perpetrating fraud against the Global North, with many of the traditional factors promoting social control absent. Further, the paper uses control and differential association theories to argue that in many areas of West Africa, at a communal level there is no social control related to scamming the Global North and that there are wide range of factors pushing very large numbers of predominantly young urban males to fraud, which the authors describe as communal differential association. The paper ends by offering a variety of options that could be pursued to address these communities with cultures of no control.

Author

• Mark Button, University of Portsmouth