Gendered alternative to cyber fraud participation: an assessment of technological driven crime in Lagos State, Nigeria

Abstract

This article discusses the place of women in the growing trend of cyber fraud in Lagos state, Nigeria. It situates this within the criminology of youth and elicited data through the adoption of mixed method design. In the survey, two categories of respondents were selected through multi stage sampling procedure and were subsequently used for the research. 1000 youths were drawn from the general public of the research area and 800 other who were suspected to be fraudsters were equally located within the several cyber cafés in the area during the field exercise. The information from FGD and In-depth interviews were used to support data elicited through the survey. Two theoretical models were used and these include the general strain theory developed by Robert. Agnew and Kathleen Daly’s gendered pathway approach to crime. It was found that more male were involved in cyber fraud than female. However, it was found that female functions as professionals in their unique roles in perfecting fraud maturation through deceptive touch and retrievals of fraud proceeds. The paper recommends a triangular approach to solving the challenges of female involvement in cyber fraud.