Online scammers in Africa are conning British women out of thousands of pounds as "payback for colonialism", a study has revealed.
The Ghanaian group, known as Sakawa Boys, has been asking women for money and tricking them into thinking they are in a romantic relationship.
British and Nigerian academics found that scammers claimed the "enduring legacy of colonialism" was "a key factor" behind their crimes.
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"In particular, online romance offenders invoke higher loyalties, rationalising their actions as reparative justice for colonial exploitation, and framing their fraud as a means of reclaiming wealth unjustly taken during colonial rule," the paper, published in the journal Deviant Behaviour, said.
Ghana gained its independence in 1957, having previously been a British colony since the 19th century.
The Sakawa Boys use social media sites such as Facebook to emotionally manipulate victims into making financial transactions, often pretending to be men with solid careers.
Ghana is ranked 13th in the world for online fraud, according to the World Cybercrime Index data.
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A man on his laptop in Accra, Ghana
|GETTY
Fraudsters interviewed for the study showed very little remorse, and some described the horrors of Ghana's colonial past as revenge for their actions.
The West African country was known as the "Gold Coast" because of its natural reserves, which were exploited under British rule.
Kojo, a scammer who has been quoted in the paper, claimed his ancestors were "stripped of their dignity" by colonialists.
He said: "We are the architects of a new era, an era where we turn the tables and reclaim what was taken from us by the white people.
"This is not just a game, this is history reclaiming itself."
Another fraudster known as Justice said: "They took more than just the gold, cocoa and the riches of our land.
"They took our people, bound them and shipped them across oceans. Now, we are bringing back dollars from overseas."
The paper was co-written by three British academics, who found that the perception of historical wrongs cited by the fraudsters after they were caught was often misplaced.
The scammers have been using Facebook to scam women
| PAThe authors stated: "Scammers position themselves as agents of historical retribution, justifying their crimes as acts of resistance against the enduring economic inequalities rooted in colonial legacies.
"These rationalisations demonstrate how offenders attempt to reduce their guilt, but they do not free them from responsibility, as romance scams are a serious crime with severe financial and psychological consequences for victims."
An Interpol-coordinated police operation last week resulted in the arrest of over 1,200 cyber-criminals who are believed to have conned at least 88,000 victims.
The raids recovered some $97.4million (£72million), with investigators targetting 18 African countries, including Ghana.