Ntaniella Roumpini Pylarinou, University of Huddersfield

Fraud has been always a financial burden for governments, while victims of fraud suffer financial and psychological consequences to the extreme of suicide because of embarrassment. The HMRC/IRS scams have been significantly increasing the past years with taxpayers being at a higher risk for victimisation, and governments reporting billions of losses annually. The majority of such operations originate in countries where there might be limited interest by the police in arresting such criminals, whilst the Westerns Countries that suffer the losses have no jurisdiction in the countries where the scammers are based. Consequently, there is limited available research and limited information on such offenders. The present study utilised videos where legitimate taxpayers and Internet trolls engage with HMRC/IRS scammers, where the first attempt to delay the scammer and protect other victims, and the latter are under the impression that they have identified a potential victim and a win.

To get some background context for the presentation, here is a link to the journal article on profiling tax scams using trolling videos: http://web.nacva.com/JFIA/Issues/JFIA-2020-No1-10.pdf

Presently, Ntaniella is a part- time Academic at the University of Huddersfield and teaches at the MSc Investigative Psychology. Ntaniella completed the MSc in Investigative Psychology at Huddersfield University in 2016 and was awarded with a distinction for the MSc dissertation on Stalking in Greece. Her PhD is focused on Stalking and Stalking Myths in Greece and the UK.

Ntaniella Pylarinou has published articles related to the field of Investigative Psychology. Ntaniella currently contributes to research projects, such as human trafficking and modern slavery, stalking and internet facilitated sexual offending. Other research interests include cyberstalking, tax fraud, revenge porn, human trafficking, and sex-trafficking.