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The purpose of this paper is to gain in-depth understandings of the stages involved in the case of a romance scam victim who was unknowingly used as a drug mule. The work compares this case with established research in this field. It also seeks to learn more about the strategies used by these cybercriminals.

The research presents a case study of a victim of a romance scam who was arrested for drug trafficking. The research involves a grounded theory analysis of interviews with the victim, legal team and family members and analysis of her instant messenger chat logs and email communications.

The analysis identified a variation on previous stage models of romance scams and re-names this as the “romance scammers” strategy model. It also replicates previous work on scammers’ techniques and highlights some new strategies, including positively and negatively framing messages, unconditional positive regard, activating norms of romantic relationships, cognitive immersion, manipulating role, sleep deprivation and signing is believing.

These findings could be used to help guide future similar court cases. Moreover, they can be drawn upon to advance future research on romance scams, as well as scams in general.

This is the first in-depth case study of a romance scam victim involved in drug trafficking and is the first research on romance scams to examine in depth a case, taking into account textual exchanges. While not undermining previous research, this paper provides valuable insights that are lacking in previous qualitative work on cyber scam victims.

The purpose of this study is to identify the risks that exist in halal meat supply chain activities and to carry out a risk assessment using the fuzzy best-worst method (FBWM) along with mitigating risks using the risk mitigation number (RMN).

The method used is to collect several literature reviews related to the halal meat supply chain, which has information relevant to the risks of the meat industry in Indonesia. Then, a focus group discussion was held with several experts who play a role in the meat industry in Indonesia, and 33 identified risks were identified in halal meat supply chain activities. The proposed methodology uses FBWM and RMN in conducting risk assessment and mitigation in the meat industry in Indonesia.

The analysis reveals that priority risk is obtained by using the global weight value on the FBWM, and then risk mitigation is carried out with RMN. Priority mitigation strategies can mitigate some of the risks to the meat industry in Indonesia. The proposed mitigation strategy is designed to be more effective and efficient in preventing risks that can interfere with product halalness in halal meat supply chain activities in the Indonesian meat industry.

The implications of this study highlight the need for collaboration among stakeholders, improved risk assessment methodologies and the expansion of research into other halal supply chains. By addressing these implications, the halal industry can enhance its integrity, consumer confidence and overall contribution to the global market.

This research provides an integrated approach to identifying, analyzing, assessing and mitigating risks to the meat industry in Indonesia.

In this work-in-progress, the application of blockchain technology (BT) in higher education in India – involving academic institutions, students and verifiers – in the wake of fake degrees (racket) being issued at a large scale from universities across the country is being investigated. This paper considers providing new methods of database system in education, and implementing the new BT in education can increase transparency and security in the education system.

This study used interview methodology (asking interview participants a series of informal questions to obtain knowledge).

Private and public sector organizations have many challenges to overcome in synchronizing and aligning their digital transformation efforts to enable the network effects to take hold. India’s policymakers, civil society leaders, senior business leaders and entrepreneurs are building strong clusters to help the country be the leader of the next era of the internet as a platform that helps transform human affairs for the benefit of the citizens. Executives can contribute to the digital ecosystem by creating open and collaborative cultures where knowledge and innovation are shared with the industry for the benefit of the masses and, more so, to establish quality and communication standards. They also can contribute by staying open to change, embracing digital adoption and transformation within their management models and infrastructure. It is time for institutions to rethink their processes and governance structures to become more agile and innovative players. The success of a harmonious digital identity ecosystem relies on staying ahead of the organization’s digital curve. As a first step to provide better quality in the provision of public services, Secure Key Technologies’ blockchain-based ecosystem (securekey.com) allows multiple partners to strengthen the authentication and provides identity attribute validation as a fabric of trust and as a solid foundation to embrace a new digital era. Secure Key Technologies’ vision for the future of digital identities redefines the ways both consumers and businesses approach identity verification and the sharing of key personal information. The challenges identified in the education system be it the difficulty in authenticating certifications and documents, tracking intellectual property and in accessibility can be better managed through blockchain implementation.

Digital certificates produced using blockchains are the most secure and efficient method being adopted by many countries across the globe (Grech and Camilleri, 2017). Tamper-proof blockchain records consist of three components or layers: the first contains the signed hash of the content, the second contains all the data and images and the third is the presentation and styling of the data. The verification process is relatively simple; the hash of the recipient is compared to the hash stored on the blockchain if they match the document is verified.

The purpose of the current article is to provide an account of the financial crimes that are committed within the football clubs in Greece.

First, ethnographic research with two football clubs in Greece was conducted. Additional information on the issues at stake was obtained through interviews with informed actors from the realm of Greek football. Moreover, the telephone conversations that were available as the result of wiretapping by the Greek National Intelligence Agency, in relation to the latest football match-fixing scandal (2011) were used. Finally, published media sources were used. These provided information not only on the process behind financial crimes within football clubs but also on the key actors involved.

A number of financial (and finance-related) crimes committed within football clubs were identified in the study. These include: ticket “tricks”, fake tax certificates, crimes related to the players’ salary payments, owing money, money laundering and match-fixing. Issues around financial crimes within football clubs must be located within the overall football-related context in the country, which is, of course, an extension of the general financial, entrepreneurial and political landscape in the country.

This is the first article on football clubs and financial crimes in Greece. Although this is a case study from Greece, it constitutes a potential template for research on an international level. By using the case of football and football clubs in Greece, this article adds to understandings of the complexity of the broader motivational context of financial crime.

This paper aims to illustrate how illegally obtained funds are laundered through raw diamonds in Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein and Switzerland.

To identify specific money laundering techniques involving raw diamonds, this study used a qualitative content analysis of data collected from 60 semi-standardized interviews with both criminals and prevention experts and a quantitative survey of 200 compliance officers.

Raw diamonds are extraordinarily suitable for money laundering in European German-speaking countries. In particular, they may be used in all three stages of the laundering process, namely, placement, layering and integration.

Because the qualitative findings are based on semi-standardized interviews, their insights are limited to the perspectives of the 60 interviewees.

Identifying gaps in existing anti-money laundering mechanisms should provide compliance officers, law enforcement agencies and legislators with valuable insights into how criminals operate.

While prior studies focus on the methods used by organizations to combat money laundering and how to improve anti-money laundering measures, this paper investigates how money launderers operate to avoid detection, thereby illustrating authentic experiences. Its findings provide valuable insights into the minds of money launderers and combines criminal perspective with that of prevention experts.

Introducing immunity or vaccine passports is one non-pharmaceutical intervention that governments are considering to exempt immune, vaccinated or otherwise risk-free individuals from lockdowns and other public health restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic. The primary objective of these documents would be to begin reopening societies, restarting economies and returning to a pre-pandemic normalcy. This article aims to present the start of a conceptual documentary analysis of (proposed and existing) COVID-19 immunity passports in order to more fully center their documentary status within research, considerations and conversations about their potential roles, impacts and implications.

Inspired by Paula A. Treichler's argument for the importance of theoretical thought for untangling the socio-cultural phenomena of epidemics, and drawing upon interdisciplinary theories of documentation, identity and public health, combined with recent news coverage of the coronavirus pandemic, this article provides a contemporary overview and conceptual analysis of emerging documentary regimes of COVID-19 immunity verification involving immunity or vaccine passports.

Three major interconnected objectives could be fulfilled by immunity passports. First, they would establish and materialize an official identity of COVID-19 immune for people possessing the formal document. Second, they would serve as material evidence establishing and verifying individuals' immunity, vaccination or risk-free status from the coronavirus that would, in term, determine and regulate their movements and other privileges. Third, they would create tangible links between individuals and governments' official or recognized identity category of COVID-19 immune. Immunity passports would, therefore, help enable and enforce governmental authority and power by situating individuals within documentary regimes of COVID-19 immunity verification.

In the expanding interdisciplinary literature on COVID-19 immunity passports, sometimes also called certificates, licenses, or passes, there appears to be only minimal reference to their documentary instantiations, whether physical, digital, and/or hybrid documents. As yet, there is not any specific documentary approach to or analysis of immunity passports as kinds of documentation. A documentary approach helps to illuminate and emphasize the materiality of and ontological considerations concerning the coronavirus pandemic and its associated kinds of immunity or vaccination.

By beginning an exploration of what makes immunity passports thinkable as a public health response to the coronavirus pandemic, this article illuminates these health and identity documents' material implications for, and effects on, individuals and societies. This article, therefore, helps shed light on what immunity passports reveal about the complicated and contested intersections of identity, documentation, public health and socio-political control and discipline.

This article contributes the start of a documentary analysis of (proposed and existing) COVID-19 immunity passports in order to more fully center their documentary status within research and conversations about them.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how healthcare and public organizations can control and monitor digital health test certificates with citizens or other stakeholders using Blockchain platforms. The paper reviews and analyses the literature by focusing on keywords like “Blockchain AND COVID-19”. In response to the 2019 pandemic, most local governments closed their borders and imposed movement restrictions, impacting the global economy, peoples' mobility and everyday life. This study aims to provide a solution to how Blockchain technology can improve the socioeconomic impacts of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) by enhancing people's mobility and achieving a balance between protecting individuals' rights and public health safety.

This research utilized machine learning bibliometric tools for investigating the normative literature in the area of blockchain and COVID-19. The article conducts a systematic literature review and develops a bibliometric map based on Plevris et al.’s (2017) method.

This study indicates that there is limited literature on the use of blockchain technology in issuing and validating COVID-19 tests. The development of such solutions can be done through the utilization of smart contracts, and it is expected to increase mobility in a secure and trusted environment that will help in monitoring and slow down the spread of the pandemic.

This analysis is done during the first ten months of the pandemic outbreak, and there is still limited scientific literature investigating blockchain and COVID-19 concepts.

Organizations are rethinking their information management due to the COVID-19 pandemic for creating better value for the enterprise and all associate stakeholders. Blockchain technology helps organizations to move from a centralized to a decentralized way of information managing. The decentralization of information in the health-care sector will create a better value for all involved stakeholders and radical change in how health-care data are managed and controlled. The implementation of blockchain applications in the health-care industry will result in a more secure, visible, auditable environment accessible by all the parties involved.

It was identified that there is currently limited research done on aligning smart contracts structure within the health-care sector. Therefore, while the current literature demonstrates the importance of aligning the key concepts, little research is done on considering people’s mobility and cross-country communication.

The purpose of this paper is threefold: to sketch the current policy context that frames the education of migrant children in Shanghai; to explore the work lives of school leaders in the privately owned but government-supported schools; and to understand the socio-cultural and educational factors that shape the leadership practices in these schools.

This paper drew from publicly accessible policy papers and interview data with four principals leading migrant children’s schools in Shanghai.

Migrant children’s schools have received increasing policy recognition and attention. Principals of these schools have strived to adopt various leadership strategies to enhance the quality of education as received by migrant children. However, due to the institutional barriers such as hukou, multiple challenges continue to face migrant children and leaders leading migrant schools.

This is one of the first few papers that collected data from principals leading migrant children’s schools. The paper contributes to further understandings about leadership in high-needs school context and about education quality and equity in relation to programme for international student assessment success in Shanghai.

This paper aims to find out what causes differences in understanding the concept of halal tourism between the government and stakeholders, which results in the slow development of halal tourism and the emergence of doubts for stakeholders who want to be part of halal tourism in Bandung.

This study used a qualitative research method, and then the results presented the Fishbone Diagram (Cause and Effect) of halal tourism concept in the City of Bandung. A case study approach is in accordance with the Bandung City branding as the halal tourism destination in Indonesia. The informants are the halal tourism stakeholders, consumers, the government and the tourism community.

Even though the level of Muslim tourist's arrival in Bandung has always been increasing, what was proclaimed by the government is unclear related to the halal tourism concept. The ambiguity of the halal tourism concept spread in Bandung impacts the absence of clear standardization of supporting facilities and accommodation and the emergence of anxiety and mistrust of stakeholders in applying the halal concept into their tourism business in Bandung.

This study was only conducted in Bandung City, Indonesia; hence, it lacks generality. Accordingly, future studies can expand to several potential halal tourism cities in Indonesia and halal tourists outside Bandung as informants.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first practical paper that provides a detailed and comprehensive description of the different concepts of halal tourism in the city of Bandung.

This research aims to determine to what degree registered and nonregistered Rohingyas differ in their difficulties and coping strategies.

Kutupalong registered and one nonregistered camp (Camp 2E) were selected as the study area, and a mixed-methods approach was followed to collect the data. Six in-depth interviews and two focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted first, and then the questionnaire survey was conducted on 315 Rohingyas, comprising 116 registered and 199 non-registered refugees.

The results indicate a substantial difference in the difficulties and coping techniques of registered and nonregistered refugees in food, residence, health and security. Except for the health and security issue, the registered Rohingyas (RRs) have a relatively better life than the nonregistered Rohingyas (NRRs). The main problem registered refugees undergo is economic, followed by health service, food, residence, social and security issue. For nonregistered refugees, economic and social issues receive maximum attention, while security is their last concern. The coping strategies show that all strategies against difficulties significantly differ between registered and nonregistered Rohingyas.

Based on their registration status, this research may assist humanitarian workers and policymakers in better understanding of Rohingya refugees' livelihood strategies and challenges in Bangladesh. The findings may also help practitioners and policymakers build new programs and services to assist complex and difficult refugee groups in improving their livelihoods and access to essential amenities.

Previous research shows little attention to the variations between registered and unregistered refugees. However, almost no studies have compared the challenges and coping methods of registered and unregistered Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh and other regions. This research was meant to define and offer an in-depth analysis of the Rohingya refugees' livelihood strategies in the Kutupalong registered and nonregistered camp in Bangladesh to fill the knowledge gap.