For Love Or Money? (Romance Fraud TV Show Marathon) | Absolute Documentaries

foreign millions of pounds are stolen from unsuspecting victims under the guise of love the type of crime we're investigating is a confidence trick call it what you will romance scam blackmail gold digger whatever the name it doesn't begin to describe the horrific impact these crimes can have on the people who have been targeted as well as being life-changing these crimes are very much on the rise with victims losing an average of more than 11 000 pounds well we are here to stop the scammers in their tracks and as we get to the bottom of how they were able to pull off some of the most audacious cons we'll have everything you need to know to make sure you and your money stay safe [Music] coming up this businesswoman confronts the man who conned her out of sixty thousand pounds you stole my entire life savings and you're still saying right now no I didn't no I didn't you're just a liar and I don't know how you'd live with yourself where is Pets money how this model caught out the man who'd stolen his photos so he could pretend to be him and scam innocent victims I said don't lie to me mate you're like you've been caught red-handed now you could have cost this girl life and a sophisticated romance con that played out like a real-life spy story complete with dramatic finale I'd only think there's words to express how I was feeling I just wanted it over with we've been contacted by a lady called Pat now she thinks she's being scammed by a man called Morgan Giovanni let's take a look I have tried online dating in the past and so I was sort of used to it I just wanted some I want companionship I really liked his picture what connected me to him was how different he was you know I have lots of money and we can go off and I was saying great I can quit my job the problem for me is that the scam started really really really really really quickly and I just fell for it well we're determined to uncover the truth behind the scam so I'm setting off on the trail of Morgan Giovanni using all the evidence that Pat has gathered to start me off [Music] and I'm on my way to see Pat romance scammers stole a total of 50 million pounds from their victims in 2018 so I want to know exactly how she ended up being taken in hello hi Pat how are you they'd been made redundant from a job that I really liked my youngest daughter had gone off to University and I S I had this feeling that finally I could maybe form a new relationship because I'd been a single parent for 17 years Pat signed up to an over 50s dating site and it wasn't long before Morgan Giovanni got in touch from his photograph was he your type in the beginning yeah I thought he was really attractive and he started being very very very nice [Music] Morgan told her he was an Italian-American boxing promoter based in Oregon he was divorced and had a daughter who like Pats had just gone off to University he quickly asked Pat to carry on their Chats on the phone messaging service WhatsApp and as things progressed he asked for her home address he said I just want to send you flowers and so I suppose when you've been a single parent for 17 years it's really nice to get flowers yes and when you've just been made redundant from your job of course I am so that in itself to me you know if somebody says you know I want to send you flowers and do send you flowers you think this is a person that's genuinely interested in me and is you know in his is is Keen to kind of Forge a relationship but the message is Morgan sent soon moved from romance to finance he asked me to send him six thousand pounds why did he say he needed the money why could he not pay for it himself all of this is I need this money uh because I'm bidding for this tournament and they've Frozen my account and my colleagues account because we have to have a hundred thousand pounds in our account in order to do this pitching I was suspicious and I said oh you're just trying to get money out of me and you know you're a crook and all of this stuff and then he sent me uh through WhatsApp his passport his daughter's ID from University of Portland in the states he sent me pictures of his daughter's credit cards to prove that he was a genuine person that he was genuinely who he said he was and all of that so I sent him the six thousand wow given the situation with his bank Morgan asked for the money to be paid into his daughter Tanya's account but while Pat was convinced by the documents Morgan had sent her when her kids found out what had happened they saw things very differently what did they say when you said oh I've sent this guy that I've been speaking to for two weeks six thousand they said it's a scam they said to you then yeah I just ignored them I was because I wanted it to be true that's why foreign parted with the money on the promise she'd get it all back when the two finally met up having made plans for Morgan to come to London he canceled at the last minute telling Pat he had to go to Amsterdam on business you said I'm going to go to Holland because I'm pitching to promote a boxing tournament and he sent me through his plane ticket with his name and all of this so he's always sending me backing up you know documentation yeah and I'm just very um gullible aspers and naive but you know like you say if he's being charming and you know seems to be the real deal yeah [Music] every turn Morgan was sending Pat documents that made him appear legitimate so I want to know if they're quite as genuine as they seem Darion hi good to meet you Ashley nice to meet you mate you too sit down I.T expert and journalist Darian Graham Smith has agreed to cast his eye over the documents Morgan sent starting off with his passport so this is Morgan Giovanni's passport well there's a couple of rather suspicious things about it the first one that really leaps out at me is the quality of the text you can see United States of America here and all these little words like nationality date of birth those are all a little bit blurry a little bit soft the words Giovanni and Morgan absolutely as sharp as you like that's been added afterwards no doubt about it and if you have a look at this passport photo here as well I'm not quite certain but it looks like someone's cut out the existing picture the real picture of whoever's passport this was and just pasted their own face on top it's crazy the thing is if you've you know spent months building a relationship with someone online they send you this you're not necessarily going to notice that are you no absolutely if you already feel that you know somebody and you're building up a degree of trust you're not going to be looking for these kind of things and honestly I guess you're not going to want to find them and once you know what you're looking for there are similar Clues with the student ID if you look along the top it's a student identification it's a little bit blurry it looks like it's been scanned in it certainly doesn't look like it's been professionally printed whereas the text below it absolutely pin sharp it says Portland University and all of this this looks like looks like it's clearly been digitally later on afterwards and also if you look very closely your spot these are actually different type of faces as well it doesn't look consistent you mean different fonts that's right yes also down the bottom if you look at the signature here that says T Woods you'll see those two letter O's absolutely identical oh my God I would never notice that but it's true this looks like it's clearly been digitally later on afterwards yeah I don't think there's many people whose handwriting is that perfectly consistent so that again is very much a red flag I would not spot the points that you've just raised I would I could be convinced that that is someone's legit student ID no absolutely while Ashley gets closer to the truth about boxing promoter Morgan Giovanni perhaps telling me that shortly after she'd lent him six grand he came up with reasons why he needed more but the only way she could help was by raiding her redundancy he started asking me for money for his taxes I don't know you know and I just wanted to believe him at any other time I would not have had this money I just wouldn't have had the money um so anyway I did send him turns out it was about 52 000 pounds yeah yeah I'll never have that money again and still then I believed him I believed him [Music] having pocketed the 52 000 pounds Morgan Giovanni didn't stop there six weeks later he told Pat he needed to borrow even more he'd won big money betting on a boxing tournament but with his bank account still frozen he asked Pat if he could transfer the winnings to her instead the only catch was she'd need to pay money up front first to get the cash released he asked me for another 38 000. uh he'd said he'd want a bet he gave me the login to his bank account and there's a big picture of him and there's about two and a half million pounds in the bank as far as Pat was concerned this was proof that Morgan already had plenty of money in the bank but getting the 38 000 pounds needed to release his winnings wouldn't be easy then I started to try and borrow it and I decided I'm going into my bank to ask for a loan so you then went into the bank and they said to you she said to me you know you'll owe us 40 000 pounds if I give this to you it's a scam well that's when I gave up that's how I'd say it I gave up you know gave up the dream yeah and admitted um oh dear oh dear what have I done yeah but up until that point you hadn't wanted to admit it but no no you kind of and well I always had doubts but you know I was but they could have willing to be persuaded yeah I was willing to be persuaded despite being conned out of sixty thousand pounds Pat still hasn't broken off all communication with Morgan the reason I've been in contact with him is to well I want to find him yes you know or maybe we could try and help you find out some information that might end this nightmare for you that would be great [Music] well that was a story um the thing about Pat is that she is not the kind of person that would really be taken in by this kind of thing she seems super intelligent and switched on but I think what happened in this case was the guy was so convincing sending flowers and and really kind of making it seem like he wanted to have a relationship with her prior to asking her for money and then all the documentation that he had to back up his stories the passports the flight tickets the ID it's actually really scary while Ash and I look into who Morgan really is all of this raises the question of how you can tell if someone online is who they say they are scammers troll the internet every day looking for profiles they can steal to win over their unsuspecting victims now having your identity stolen and used in this way can really take its toll and when model Matt peacock found out this had happened to him he decided to take action [Music] peacock is a successful model with over 25 000 followers on Instagram I've been doing it for about 17 years now I've worked for people like Range Rover Bentley Purdy and Adidas to promote his work and keeps his settings open so anyone who wants to can follow him at the click of a button a fair share of whom are women almost you've kind of got to look accessible because people kind of want to kind of buy into your lifestyle a bit certain brands will book you because they they like that I'm a family man or they so it runs a book because they see that I'm good with my dog and so you kind of got to be open but Matt's openness on social media provided a gateway to scammers to misuse His image he found out that scores of men had helped themselves to his pictures so they could pose as him on dating websites to entice women a practice known as catfishing I was getting messages off girls saying why are you talking to me under a different name and I was like oh hang on and that was kind of my first kind of baptism of fire into into the whole world of catfishing it was weird really because I'd never come across anything like that before someone was pretending to be me at first Matt didn't see any reason to be unduly worried about the misuse of his Instagram photos they never usually called themselves completely Matt peacock because obviously I have those social media handles there was one guy called Matt Peak and he obviously put a lot of thought into that but I mean at first I just kind of laughed it off but a worrying pattern soon emerged as a growing number of distraught women started contacting Matt and his partner it got to the point where it was happening every single week I was getting lots of message off girls upset some not believing for one minute that it wasn't me some people messaged Rachel and said your boyfriend's talking to me online pretending to be somebody else Matt discovered over 60 profiles using his photograph but it was when a young mum called Kirsty contacted him that he decided he needed to take action a young girl messaged me and said I've been talking to this guy for six months I thought he was you he sought me into sending nude pictures of myself new videos um and uh it's got to the point where I'm going to take my own life she was quite a vulnerable person and I thought right I'm I'm not going to stand for that I'm I've got to do something about it I can't have that on my conscience Matt hired a private detective who quickly Tracked Down the man who had duped Kirsty the detective advised Kirsty you need to speak to him and say I've found out that you're not Matt peacock but we've got a connection I don't care what you look like I'm not like that please can we meet up the scammer took the bait and arranged to meet Kirsty at a hotel car park but what he didn't know was that she would be nowhere to be seen Matt and the private detective would confront him instead he pulled into the car park I went and knocked on his window I said I suggest you get out you know exactly who I am so anyway he got out he's crying shaking and everything I was like what you're doing and um I'm not doing it it's not me it's not me I said don't lie to me mate you're like you've been caught red-handed now you could have cost this girl life next Matt read a statement from Kirsty to the scammer telling him the full impact of his lies she said you've broken me as a person you've destroyed any kind of confidence I had and it was just it was heartbreaking absolutely heartbreaking so anyway made him listen to me when I read it to him I told Matt he'd never meant to cause any harm and blamed his behavior on the fact he got bullied at school and never had any success meeting women shook his hand I said swear to me as a manner so it's time to be a man now do not do this again but he soon did there were 20 other women on the scammers phone that he'd catfished using Matt's photographs the private detective contacted all of them saying that the man responsible had been caught and he wouldn't be doing it again unfortunately he already had one of the girls said well I spoke to him last night and he sent me this picture and it was a picture of me and my dog Barney that he'd renamed and I'd taken it the night before so I was like that's it I'm going to the police but Matt was left stunned when the police told him that because the scammer hadn't done anything illegal they were unable to take any action there's lives at risk and it needs it needs addressing and we said right you know what we're going to try and change the law Matt contacted his local MP and coffee who agreed that the law needs to be changed to make catfishing illegal [Music] the digital Charter and the green paper offer an opportunity for a real partnership between legislators and Technology to be developed to protect users from aggressive and harmful predators and while it is already against the law to pretend to be someone else for financial gain no such law protects victims when it comes to matters of the heart something that Anne and Matt are campaigning to change if you go you should only be able to have an online social media profile an online dating profile if you can prove who you are simple as that we've been looking into the case of Pat who was sweet talked into hand in over 60 000 pounds to a man who wasn't who he claimed to be you've already discovered that the documents he sent through as evidence he was real are actually fake I would say this is well within the reach of any scammer who's going to even bother making the efforts so next I want to know if it's even him in the pictures he was sending and if not where has he got them from Pat has given me photos ideas documents all sorts from Morgan so I'm going to check it out to see what I can find out I'm uploading one of the photos Pat sent me to an online search engine this will scour the internet for anywhere the image may have appeared it then reveals a number of identical related images which will give me a better idea of who the person is in the photo and hopefully lead me to a name [Music] I'm going to pull out some names from these links to see if I can find who this fella is [Music] right so I'm going to Google that name now [Music] okay he's on Facebook the pictures that Morgan has been using are on this fella attila's Facebook page it's Hiller's Facebook set and set to public his photos are readily available to anyone who wants to see them or use them we've got to the bottom of Hugh Morgan's picture belongs to but what about his daughter Tanya she is all over dating sites oh my God I mean this image has been pimped I want to find the real person where is she Oh my days I wasn't expecting that okay so we have got a name for her she appears to be an actress I'm on a Twitter page it's a verified Twitter account her pin tweet says this I don't have Facebook or any other social media account if you've spoken to anyone that says they're me or using my photos they are lying don't get catfished so she's aware of course that her picture's being used many places I'm so shocked by that it's clear that everything that Morgan told Pat is based on a lie but the one thing we do know is real is his phone number so with Pat's permission it's time to give the scammer a dose of his own medicine I text him a few minutes ago and Morgan has been messaging back non-stop he's manipulative he is keeping me interested he is saying that he wishes he could see me today I mean he is doing everything he can to keep Pat's interest he's saying to Pat I tried many times to call you but your phone wasn't working are you working busy so I'm going to reply let's say yes it's been a busy time but I've been thinking about you he's just text back super quick saying I've also been thinking of you since you left he's just said there is so much we have to talk about the dialogue is Relentless he's still typing this could go on for a long time stay Ed's identity and forging documents wasn't enough he also used manipulative language in his texts to get what he wanted so I'm going to meet a forensic linguist who can tell me how a romance scammer would get an intelligent woman like Pat to develop such strong feelings for someone she's never met they start out talking and having kind of loving dialogue How does it go from from that to to asking for money it's a grooming process where you start off in a normal relationship you give information to the person they give the information back but then slowly ever so slowly the norm changes into a situation where you don't even recognize it anymore and it's through that manipulation of language and you end up in a situation where your normality is is completely irregular Elizabeth has picked out some of the scammers messages that showcase this technique so here is some interaction between Pat and Morgan and you can see here that the that the scammer is trying to invoke this reciprocal trust he's saying I love you why don't you love me the same way back to try and almost shame her into doing what he wants her to do so Pat goes all right I believe you but I'm not giving you any money she really puts her foot down here but this is how he manages to manipulate Pat he then says you know things went wrong I'm not the type of man who likes asking help from women so here he's really provoking his protective response he's saying you know I'm putting myself out there now this is a really important Point you're challenging them because you are feeling vulnerable and you need reassurance the person on the other end of that if they react in an angry way either they're a scammer or they're not the type of person you want to be in a relationship with this is typical of an abusive relationship of coercive control she's apologizing for trying to protect herself she's apologizing for her vulnerability please give me another chance don't let me ruin this relationship so he's switched the whole thing around you don't realize you know what goes into it and how much they're obviously manipulating the situation and how they are picking up from their constant conversation their little vulnerabilities absolutely those are the exact kind of things that scammers will use against you [Music] like so many others Powers Dukes in part by the language her scammer used when he emailed or texted her but some of these frauds are so more elaborate as this next case shows at the heart of it is Lynn who had no reason to doubt her new partner as they'd met in person several times but the scam took her halfway across the world crippled her financially and ended up with her working with the police in an undercover sting foreign an intelligence analyst from Liverpool contacted Lin on a dating website they immediately clicked and quickly met in person at a plush local restaurant he took me for a meal proper chance I just thought you know this guy is a real nice guy and I can't believe they met someone that actually likes what I like and you know we had a connection after several weeks of seeing each other John told Lynn he'd been asked to work in Israel for the next six months despite the long distance their relationship continued to Blossom messages every night we'd spent hours talking sometimes I'd over two or three hours of sleep would be that tired in the morning it was in one of these conversations that John broke the news to Lynn that his father who lived in Dubai had died and he needed to go there to sort out his estate it said would I like to come over he'd paved me to go over there put me up in a hotel I had about three days notice so I thought yeah why not I just got on the plane once but when Lynn arrived in Dubai it wasn't John there to greet her instead a man who said he was his cousin whisked her off to her hotel I did feel a bit I don't know you but he'd messaged me to say I'm sorry someone will be meeting you this is what he looks like for the next 24 hours the cousin drove Lynn around Dubai showing her the sights but then John sent news that because of his work situation he wouldn't be able to leave Israel anytime soon so he asked Lynn whether she would be able to help his cousin sort out his dad's will without him and he told her the estate was worth a staggering seven million pounds when he told me the amount I went wow that's a lot of money but you wanted to bring money over to England and I was like can you do that John told her on the phone he wanted to use some of the money to buy a house for the pair of them and he also said that he donates half a million pounds to the local hospice well in volunteers so whilst in Tel Aviv Lin and the cousin went to see the solicitor who was executing the will and arrived to an eye-opening surprise it was like this big case opened it up and it was just full of money foreign millions millions American dollars maybe a bit I felt a bit on edge actually to see that much money Lynn was given a special certificate that she was told to keep safe so that John could legally bring the money back to the UK without paying tax despite feeling uneasy she agreed so I'll put it in the passport we mustn't lose that he said because that's that's vital otherwise these four days I've got here uh will be wasted so don't worry it's in my passport it'll be looked after two days later John's cousin asked for the certificate back but there was a problem [Music] so I was literally hunting everywhere I thought no it's got to be it's got to be there put it there it looks everywhere I remember them saying to me oh that's not good John's not going to be very happy I was like oh dear mate I said there's anything I could do at this point Lynn had no idea that the cousin had secretly taken the certificate a replacement would cost ten thousand pounds but John told her on the phone that he had to have one [Music] I went back to the guy and said what about if I give you the money then you can get it sorted as soon as you get your money back give it me back now we said no we can't do that so I said no please please take the money John told Lynn he would pay her back with the inheritance I transferred the money over straightaway I said it's all a bit bizarre this and said but it's not not every day you meet someone that you know has as if he left so much money in the world Lynn returned to the UK confident that her money had helped John release his inheritance but there were more surprises to come John asked her to meet a security consultant called Doug who now be taken over the legal side of his dad's will but at that meeting the security then pulled up and two men carrying a suitcase joined them when the suitcase was opened it was stuffed with US Dollars and Doug wasn't happy why is this not done this was meant to be changed into English money do you realize that now we can't do it blah blah blah blah big quite quite big argument really this is going to set things back we need this now and all this and I was like oh my goodness the two men left with the cash but a visibly upset dog told Lynn that he now feared for his job he said he'd now needs to pay 500 pounds a week for however long it took him to get the money converted into Sterling cash that linfelt compelled to help contribute I think because I'd put so much money into it I felt I need to get this money back so I've got to give money to get money back you know I don't like seeing dog upset we sort of got this far I get 500 000 for the hospice and I'll get my money back and I couldn't be hunky dory by now Lynn's son had found out about the elaborate fraud that she had been drawn into he contacted action fraud and then the police who assigned detective Kevin Greene to the case foreign at the time when we met Lynch she was 18 months into this fraud we had a lot awful lot of catching up to do in terms of a reactive investigation Lynn was still very much immersed in that fraud and actually this story read like a movie script as I got to know Lynn a bit more I realized Lynn plowed a heart and soul into someone who she'd formed an emotional attachment with she'd been manipulated in a very sophisticated manner but when the police told her that Lynn couldn't accept that neither John nor Doug were who they said they were said well that's not true and that's not true I've met them I've had conversations that's not true I said so no I'm not getting scammed I think we've got to understand that Lynn was probably a time in her life when she was open to manipulation she was looking for a real emotional bond and actually the people behind this scam really exploited them Mary had sown the seeds of doubt and when Lynn caught dug out on where he was living she realized she had been duped after all I felt humiliated embarrassed so do you know what I've had enough forget the money forget everything that's how I felt but with Lynn still in contact with both con men Kevin hatched the plan to catch them out Linwood arranged to meet them with the next payment they'd requested we knew that he was incentivized by money and the promise of more money and he'd never failed to attend previously Lynn Woods will be present in the hotel we fully anticipated that he would turn up and basically the police operation was to ensure that we were there to arrest him when he did for lin this meant potentially putting herself In Harm's Way if anything went wrong it already pre-booked a train for me he said five or six police officers are going to be in the train you're not going to know who they are that's for my protection obviously in case I bumped into him or something when you get to Houston go into the toilet and the lady will put a tracker in your bag an understandably nervouslyn made her way into the hotel lobby one of the hardest things I've ever done I don't even think there's words to express how I was feeling I just wanted it over with as Doug made his way to greet Lynn she gave the pre-range signal for the police to pounce [Music] it was something as simple as her put a handbag on the table at which point we were able to identify the correct person and our officers were able to move in and affect an arrest [Music] I think he's probably been there so many occasions with Lane he was he was fairly complacent and just thought it was going to be another Heyday for him and that was a real nice moment it was just to watch that switch in power that balance of power where they had been more than happy to exploit Lynn for 18 20 months and actually that was the moment where she was really integral into taking her life back Doug real name ajibola dalu was eventually convicted of fraud by false representation and sentenced to three years and nine months I think archibaldi really misjudged Len he thought she was vulnerable but he didn't realize that she was incredibly courageous and not as weak as he actually thought though police never caught John the man who started it all Lynn can now see how she became so drawn into the scammers lies foreign takes on a different dimension and when you get out of that sort of reality you were in and you see that a lot of things are so much clearer I was definitely well and truly groomed for months [Music] I've been on the trail of the con man who jupits Pat in supporting with sixty thousand pounds and the evidence I've uncovered makes it clear exactly how he did it wow okay today Kim and I are meeting Pat to reveal the truth behind Morgan Giovanni to help her draw a line under the experience once and for all so we have been working hard we've been investigating just what's been going on and we've made some discoveries and if it's okay we'd like to share them with you yeah I'm really interested cool first we're showing her the details that make the passport he'd sent to her a fake if you look at how it's been corrupt if you look at the background yeah that is not an official photograph that would be used for a passport right as well as that if you look at his name yeah you can see the font is sharper than this bit of text yes it is that's a pretty good sign that this has been faked did you spot any of that in in the beginning you know when he first sent these documents no and also when it comes over WhatsApp it's really small yes of course it's really small I think the point for me is it felt like because he was sending this stuff he was legit and actually every bit of it was false which yeah you will recall this image that he sent you yes we did another search on that yeah and we found this image belongs to a man in turkey called Attila tiller now wow so he's used his Facebook profile photo yeah as the passport photograph but you can see here that he has actually you can see here his little photos in a boxing ring so not only has he taken his photos he's also decided he's going to make himself be this boxing promoter because he can take his photographs and it can look yeah all very legit next we show Pat the evidence that Morgan's so-called daughter was bogus too do you remember that Morgan sent you this yes University photo ID of his daughter if you look at the O's you take a careful look what can you spot oh they're identical yes they are they are actually yeah that suggests that this isn't handwriting but use of Technology to manipulate the signature but it's important to say that you absolutely did the right thing by asking for this form of ID but clearly what's happened here is that he has used technology to try and pull the will over your eyes and as with Morgan's passport the person behind the photograph wasn't called Tanya at all it is in fact a picture of an actress really an actress if you read her pinned tweet it says if you've spoken to anyone that says they're me or using my photos they're lying don't get catfished disappointing all of it is disappointing but I'm glad to hear it I'm glad to have it picked apart I've been texting Morgan pretending to be Pat we're going to give him a call but what he doesn't know is that it won't be Pat he's talking to foreign hello Morgan is that you yes impressed how are you what one to take money from you all my plants all my focuses I knew you were the person I love so I keep telling you just be patient don't listen to people because if you listen to people it's going to affect your relationship but then you never listen to me well you know Morgan I'm really sorry but I'm not actually Pat but pat is a friend of mine my name's Kim Marsh and you're being recorded for the broadcast on the BBC and we believe that Morgan Giovanni is a fake identity that you've created as part of a scam using photos that you've stolen from someone's Facebook account Morgan we believe that you are a scammer and that you're only speaking to us now to try and get more money out of Pat isn't that right no hi Dr Pat you want to talk to Pat right Morgan you lie and lie and lie and you stole my entire life savings and you're still saying right now no I didn't no I didn't you're just a liar and I don't know how you live with yourself you're just a an evil evil evil man no I do you need to talk like that it's not true well then return my money immediately and stop your Web of Lies all right I'm not lying my name is Pets money the passport that you sent we have shown Pat the evidence to prove that you have lied we have shown Pat the real identity of the man that you are pretending to be she knows she's seen it all but what's your real name because your name your real name is not Morgan so what is your real name hello he's just amazing isn't it I just find that shocking he is a professional at this you can tell yeah yeah he certainly seems to be are you okay yeah yeah I still well I'm just shocked by the world and I shouldn't be I know I keep saying that but I am yeah has this given you a sense of closure well it's definitely over yeah definitely I really appreciate it thank you Pat thank you thank you for telling your story because it's really important it wasn't what Pat wanted to hear but now she knows the details of how she was deceived I'm hoping it will help her start to move on when you have it laid out in front of you the level and the depth and the layers of you know how horrible people can be he was no longer him it was no longer Morgan Giovanni that I was talking to I was talking to a scammer you know the my mindset changed through that process which is good if you think you've been scammed in a similar way or have been asked to send money to someone you're talking to online then we'd like to hear from you email us at Love or Money at bbc.co.uk well that wasn't the last we heard from Morgan Giovanni a couple of hours later he sent me a message saying well done God bless goodbye I think you got the message yep and Pat has definitely drawn a line under it all she told us that she's finally deleted all of the scammers photographs from her phone and is putting the whole thing behind her now everyone we've met knows it's unlikely they'll ever get their money back but hopefully they and you now know how to spot the signs that things aren't always what they see because you just can't be sure who's in it For Love or Money thank you [Music] [Music] every year millions of pounds are stolen from unsuspecting victims under the guise of love the type of crime we're investigating is a confidence trick call it what you will romance scam blackmail gold digger whatever the name it doesn't begin to describe the horrific impact these crimes can have on the people who have been targeted as well as being life-changing these crimes are very much on the rise with victims losing an average of more than 11 000 pounds well we are here to stop the scammers in their tracks and as we get to the bottom of how they were able to pull off some of the most audacious cons we'll have everything you need to know to make sure you and your money stay safe coming up how this man's search for love saw him dragged into a criminal scheme that left him at risk from the law the scammer is effectively using you for money laundering that's not good the woman scanned the second time when she thought she was bringing the fraudsters to book I don't know how they sleep at night it's hateful what they do and a woman fighting back to help others after scammers left her at her lowest I had no money no food and I was really at rock bottom so Kim we've been contacted by a man called Andy he says he is in touch with a lady called Christy Cox who he believes might be scanner well I'd um split up from my my ex who I have a child with I I probably would say I was probably still a little bit vulnerable but felt it was the right time for me to possibly start looking again um so I enlisted myself onto a couple of dating sites well I had a lady who introduced herself to myself just a simple hi and asked me how I was basically she told me that she was in the U.S military she was widowed she had one child there was a number of requests in relation to parting with money for supplies for the store for food in the sort of first month alone I think I gave her 700 pounds I'd like to find the two this person was who these individuals are and they make you believe they ask about your family they ask you personal things and they're very clever and he's given me all the details he has on his scam of Christie so I'm going to do some digging and see what I can find out and I'm off to meet Andy to hear exactly how Christy Cox caught him in a Web of Lies there were over four and a half thousand cases of romance Ford reported in 2018 and it's not at all unusual for the fraudsters behind them to claim to be in the military it helps explain away any difficult Communications or an overseas location and creates the impression of a job you can trust she was nice she was a little bit younger than myself the eyes made the first attraction for me Steve told Andy her daughter was away at private school in the states and that she was currently serving in Afghanistan so she told me she was in the U.S military which obviously was trying to work my head around that and then she's been in Carla for the last three years I began to believe him with her being in the military everything must be genuine I I took everything as being everything she was seeing was true and so was she telling you about herself was she being did you feel that she was being open with you and you felt that you were just having a normal conversation between a man and a woman at the start of a relationship I believed it was sort of 80 sort of normal um with her being in the military she used that as being I can't really tell you everything about my job I'll tell you about that when we come you know when I come home we can talk more so she wasn't giving me full story within a couple of days Christie suggested they swap numbers and chat via WhatsApp rather than through the dating site and it wasn't long before the pair was swapping pictures and romantic messages I had a picture of her in a military uniform it sort of made everything right for me thinking well this is a genuine person yeah and so you were very wary of that you were kind of wanting to make sure that that was who you were talking at the start yes I was yeah because obviously anybody can put pictures on there and I guess also you know this kind of thing wasn't even in your head you know you weren't even sitting there thinking somebody might try and I never even thought about it yeah it never even entered my head at all the couple chatted non-stop for three days and when Christy asked for 50 pounds for an iTunes voucher Andy was happy to help she give a reason as to why she couldn't pay for that herself a bank account in a card was blocked so that was the first time that you were asked for money correct and then presumably you carried on just chatting as normal getting to know each other it was the usual chatting as the what you've been doing today because a lot of the time she was on patrol so I have to wait for her to come back and Patrol before I could speak to her but over the coming months with her account still apparently blocked Christie requested more money for clothes supplies her daughter's school fees and then eventually her flight ticket back from Afghanistan I did questions I'm thinking well surely the Air Force took you out and surely they would bring you back but once again you get sweet talk Etc and you get told stories as well as the cost of the flight Christy told Andy that her daughter's private school fees which cost her almost sixteen hundred pounds a month also needed paying so she asked me then to see if I could get five to six thousand pounds to do that I had to get a loan so the five to six thousand pounds would cover the flight daughter's education and other bits and pieces that's a lot to me that's a lot of money is a lot of money to anyone that is a lot of money especially because you've gone on here genuinely looking for well no for sbis yeah and you know and you think maybe you found that with somebody and you know you're excited at the prospect of her coming home and most definitely yeah my heart tells me it's genuine so I follow my heart rather than my head Chrissy sent Andy photos from all aspects of her life to convince him she was a real person so finding out where these pictures have come from may help me get to the bottom of who Christy Cox really is I'm looking into stuff for Andy he will send quite a few pictures so I'm going to check them out and see just where it all takes us so I'm now going to reverse search an image just to see what it shows us by uploading some of the pictures Andy was sent to an online search engine I'm able to see where else their image has appeared on the internet which could help prove if she is who she says she is okay so there's a Pinterest L'Oreal and it's not Christy is it right so we've got a name I'm going to Google that name to see if I can find out any more about who this person actually is yes there is a Facebook page oh wow according to this Facebook page she lives and is from Virginia in the states gonna have a look through the photos I mean I haven't added her as a friend but everything is public I could easily crop an image from her page and use it if I wanted to so I think that I have found the real person that this image belongs to and it isn't someone called Christy one of the pictures that Christy sent to Andy she had a military outfit on with the surname Cox but on her Facebook page she has a different surname things just don't seem to be adding up so I'm now going to search for Laurel and Cox US Army see what we found typed in that name and Link's come up with a video which I'm gonna watch my name is Laurel Cox it's l-a-u-r-e-l-c-o-x the woman in the video Laurel is definitely the same person I found the Facebook page for I actually just retired two weeks ago so I'm special retired so while the scammer may have used a different first name when creating the identity Christy Cox it looks like they stole both Lowell's photographs and her genuine military career in order to create a convincing story so these are real pictures of Laurel and clearly what has happened is that Christy is not a real person whilst Ashley is unraveling the truth behind so-called Christie's photos and he's telling me more about how she extracted all she could from him still believing they would be together before too long over a period of months Andy sent her more cash mobile phones and Gifts he even took out a credit card for her to use that credit card was for two and a half thousand pounds which I'd send to her to raise more money for other items as well I sold my coin collection my gold sovereigns and stuff so I raised another three and a half thousand pounds from them sounds to me like a lot of money over the months that you'd sent to her in total what what was the sum it's going to be between 24 and 25 000 pounds which is a lot to me I was saving for someone to to live and to take my little five-year-old daughter to on holiday to Disneyland that's a lot of money it's a hard lesson to learn by now 11 months had passed and Andy simply had no more cash to give most scammers might have gone quiet at this point but Christy had other ideas about how she could exploit Andy even further she explained she had a friend in the UK who had money all Andy had to do now was open a bank account where this friend could deposit money which he would then transfer on to Christie stupidly I set up an account for her in my bank but very shortly after that sort of account was set up as a lot of money then started passing through that account okay and where was all that money coming from Dino it was coming from individuals um I would class them as being private people like myself which in my mind I started to think to myself well she told me this chap had a company so why aren't they in company names yeah but I thought well it's here many serial finances I'll just shut up Andy should have questioned it large sums of money from unknown sources going in and out of his bank account would indicate that unwittingly Andy was helping Christy to launder money and with money laundering a crime being involved with Christy in this way put him at risk of criminal prosecution there was times when she wanted to set up other sources and avenues to allow people to put money in for her so I said set up a Gmail email address for her and I set up a PayPal account for her but setting up that Gmail account soon led to a clear sign things weren't all they seemed because Andia created it on his own computer he spotted a message notification meant for Christy that appeared to be sent from another man that she was also in a relationship with this message of I love you came up and I just wanted an explanation and what did she say to you at this point she led me to believe that it was probably drunken banter it was a mistake and why would he or this person send an email to an address we both had access to hmm and of course then because the gullible I took it when you feel you're in a relationship with somebody that you think you're the only person in the relationship with that girl when that message came through yeah my heart sung if I'm honest you're thinking my gosh you know where's this come from who is this person I even toyed with the idea of email in this chat as well but I I refrained basically I thought let's just bite your lip and let's see what explanation I get off and who do you think who do you think that person was I believe it's a person that was being scammed by her by her but soon afterwards when Andy's Bank spotted a dodgy transaction and froze the account Christy was using he was forced to confront the likelihood that all along he'd been being scammed too I had a call off my bank the one day to say that there was a somebody who's put money into my account or in this account I set up for her has claimed that in a military scam and from there my bank Froze all my accounts literally even my own accounts so I can put money in I couldn't take money out the bank they gave me 14 days to prove that money was mine I couldn't prove it was online no so after about 10 days I just rang them cried told him everything wow so you've lost all that money your bank account's been frozen what then goes through your head at that moment in time I'll be honest I felt quite relieved I did feel quite relieved because the amount of pressure I was possibly putting on myself in trying to keep her happy just tumbles down in front of you you're thinking my God I'd be speaking to this person for the last year on 12 months and everything has just been just one big lie I should have asked more questions so is there anything that you would like to know about the person that you were talking to certainly knowing who these people are certainly would I suppose being closer for me Christy Cox and Andy have been stolen from someone else but I'm concerned that the way Christy was using Andy's bank account could land him in some serious hot water so I've come to see Paul Carroll from the national fraud intelligence Bureau to find out about the risks of having your account used in this way Lucy occasions where we're Fosters so they want to move their money around okay so it makes it more difficult to trace funds ultimately we know that they will use unsuspecting people to house money for them in their accounts and then to move it on to another account and they may use a fabricated story in which to achieve that and we know that through dating forwards this can be the case also ultimately you're assisting that Force though it moves right around their fortunate funds what should someone do if they're worried that they or someone they know is caught up in online romance fraud absolutely address it as quickly as you can certainly always report to action fraud if you are in an online relationship discuss your dating choices with your friends and family okay run it past them as you would with any relationship offline you know we all take our other half to meet family friends and we do listen to their advice around the data choices that we make can really actually be no different online those seeking advice from family and friends is a good way to check for signs of a possible scam it isn't always that easy a misplaced sense of embarrassment can prevent people confiding in others even after it's too late when you realize you've been scammed one of the hardest things is telling someone else that you've been taken for a ride but when it dawned on Patricia Clark that she'd been targeted by a fraudster she was determined to fight back businessman Dominic Hoffman first contacted Patricia Clarke over dating site match.com I was quite excited I've been on my own a long time and I thought it would be nice to meet someone even if it was just a nice close friendship you know he said he was a widower working in London making jewelry and he seemed to be exactly what Patricia was looking for over the next three months their online friendship became romantic there's a nice looking man and very Charming used to send me flowers send me lovely poems every day then one day Dominic told her he was heading out to Dubai on a business trip after a few days of being away he called Patricia he explained that he'd met a shake who was selling some rare gold which he wanted to buy and turn into jewelry the problem was he didn't have enough money in his bank account so he asked Patricia to lend him 2 000 pounds I agreed to do this and he promised me Faithfully which he pay me as soon as returned but just Days Later Dominic asked her for more money this time to pay off Customs who were holding his gold he hadn't got the cash to have that shipped over so it was being held there they told him that well he told me they said they could only hold it for seven days so we had to get the money within seven days and could I help him out with it by now Patricia was caught up in Dominic's story and she began regularly sending him money even paying for his medical bills he gave me the name of the doctor I sent it to his bank account then he had the operation and he recovered and all was well for a while but while cash flowed out of Patricia's bank account romantic messages flooded her inbox foreign how I made him so happy after six months in Dubai Dominic told Patricia he was returning to the UK he was leading the conversation so it was really going to happen you know he was coming back to me and we'd be together Dominic failed to turn up at Birmingham Airport Patricia heard nothing for three days and when she did receive a call it was from a woman she didn't know with terrifying news I went into shock I think I think I just froze it's hard to describe I was believing what she said the woman claimed Dominic had been kidnapped on the way to the airport and was being held for ransom she said she'd already seen two men being shot and that they would shoot Dominic if I didn't go along with what they said having already paid out over 12 800 pounds and fearful for Dominic's life Patricia called the police it was former detective Mark Cresswell who investigated her case when I spoke to Patricia on the phone she's actually very much believing uh what appeared to me to be a lies and that she was totally convinced that this person did exist these scams are incredibly complex and complicated with a lot of planning for Mark Patricia's case bore all the signs of an elaborate romance scam they researched psychology books to work out what to say to somebody to Make Them Fall in Love there's always someone there who will reply straight back to you it's as though they work around the clock 24 hours a day working in shifts and then there's a lot of emotional pressure If you don't help me out we will never see each other wisely Patricia had kept a record of every email phone message and Bank transaction she'd made to Dominic Hoffman which was vital to Mark's investigation the Breakthrough came by looking at a uk-based bank account that Patricia had made payments to the One bank account was based in the UK it was a business bank account in South London the money had gone into his accounts uh and effectively been either moved on to different bank accounts or withdrawn as cash so there was reasonable suspicion that he was involved in this romance fraud foreign belonged to a Garnier National living in the UK and further checks revealed regular payments coming in from two other women who it turned out had been targeted in the same way as Patricia she now had to accept that the man she'd invested so much in was actually a scammer it's unbelievable they make you believe everything that you're saying I don't know how they do it even if you suspect they they get into your head and you really really believe that it's going on and this could be you know the man of your dreams sort of thing in October 2018 the scammer was convicted for fraud and money laundering and received a suspended sentence He was ordered to pay back a portion of each victim's losses which in Patricia's case was 3 000 pounds I don't know how they sleep at night it's hateful what they do they've got no consideration at all for the victims who they take the money from a few weeks later Patricia was contacted on a dating site by another man who said he was from Ghana The Coincidence prompted Patricia to reveal how she'd been scammed by a Ghanaian National and the new man called Rey suggested he might be able to help her get her money back by some little little little Ray of Hope there might be a chance that he could know or find out about the people that had scammed me straight away Ray put her in touch with a female friend who worked in Ghana as a private detective I was over the moon and I thought great you know do something about it at last and within hours the private detective contacted her to say they'd found the people involved and had them arrested but to guarantee a successful prosecution Patricia would need to hire a barrister and pay off a number of local police and other officials so I did this I went into pay to get the case I was just happy that he would be there and he would put behind pass the private detective assured Patricia that a conviction would mean the court in Ghana would award her enough compensation to cover all of her previous losses twelve thousand eight hundred pounds so to make that happen over the next few months Patricia made a number of different payments totaling more than ten thousand pounds for Mark who only heard about these developments after they happened the payments are proof that sadly she'd been targeted by scammers for a second time it's uh known as a romance recovery fraud and these are relatively new uh phenomenon going on at the moment ultimately in any case where you have to pay money up front first that should be a warning sign that you are potentially being scammed again to this day Patricia remains adamant that both Rey and the private detective are genuine she even has a certificate supposedly from the court in Ghana informing her she's been awarded a hundred and sixteen thousand pounds in compensation hello Patricia how are you she's meeting up with her former investigating officer Mark in the hope that he can confirm that the paperwork is genuine it was really nice I'd like to thank you for where you supported me it was quite traumatic it takes a lot of courage to come forward and tell the police what's what's happened Marx agreed to take a close look at the authenticity of Patricia certificate if it was meant to be an official document from a court in Ghana but usually you'd see the seal for Garner the top right hand corner there the font um it looks like it's um aerial which is more accustomed to you know when you you send emails or whatever on a computer so it looks like it might have been made on a computer the says office of provincial director I'm not sure there are provinces in Ghana so I don't think uh there is a provincial director um but there's no name which goes with the signature either so I'm looking at this document I'd say in my in my opinion I think it's a fake document so the detective is fake there's nothing there's nothing there's nothing you've told me or there's nothing produced that suggests that this detective exists and I I was quite positive about this last night I thought really it could be the thing I have my doubts but yes you know oh I'm very sorry that I think you've been a victim of another fraud I know it's difficult because you've put in so much energy and emotional energy it makes us feel so silly really and stupid for falling for it but these people are so sophisticated they're so clever in what they say and what they do um and the way put they put things across to you you really believe them they're very bad people extremely bad people the more vulnerable you are the more they play on it you know horrible horrible horrible people though uncovering the truth can be undoubtedly hard it's an essential step towards being properly able to move on but in the case of Andy the discovery that it looks like his scammer was using him in order to launder money could leave him at risk of prosecution I'm going to see Paul Davis from Lloyd's Bank where Andy had his account to see how they dealt with his case and what the implications might be support what were the signs that led to Andy's account being frozen well in the case of Mr Mills it was simply the fact that we received a report of fraud from another bank so naturally we take reports like this extremely seriously and in normal situations where people are allowing their accounts to be used to receive the proceeds of scams or block the account close it recover as much money as we can and then almost certainly disclose that to the to law enforcement so that perhaps criminal proceedings can commence but that's not designed to apply to people like Mr Mills who've been duped themselves and as much of a victim as the people who've sent the money yeah for us it was a priority to make sure we give him the right education and awareness to stop him falling victim again and to make sure that he wouldn't have any adverse impacts for example on his credit file or his ability to take out any Financial products in the future how as a bank are you able to find out someone's intent how do you know that Andy didn't actually have any involvement in this or we have a team of highly trained colleagues who speak to people who let their accounts be used in this way and they're trained to assess and establish what happened what we typically find for people who engage in allowing their accounts to be used as money mules knowingly is that they don't speak to us at all and from that we can usually infer that they had that that intent behind it [Applause] it's good news that Andy isn't likely to be in trouble for unknowingly playing a part in a crime even bigger than simply romance would but there's one more part of his story that's troubling me to do with the message he stumbled across from another man this message of I love you Caleb and I just wanted an explanation I want to know more about the man whose email Andy saw and whether it means he might be being scammed too I'm going to email the account and see if the person is aware of anything going on here hi Raymond my name's Ashley I'm concerned that you could be the victim of a military romance scam let's see if Raymond gets back in touch before he's handed over any money the lies and deceit in a romance scam are devastating both emotionally and financially and although our next case learned the hard way they were spurred on to never make the same mistakes again the journey that brought elsbit Wilson to her war against the scammers started in 2016. it was a year she'd rather forget she got divorced had a brain tumor removed and she began dating with devastating consequences after being divorced I started looking on dating sites because being on your own it does get lonely and it's an easy way to find somebody else bit signed up to the free dating website Badoo and within just a couple of days she received a message from a British army officer called Brian Walsh he told elsbert that he was currently deployed in Syria but was about to retire and was looking to make connections back home and it wasn't long before Brian upped the ante sending her roses before going on to declare his love for her it was nice for somebody to say in the short time that they wanted to wear get married and I thought it was a genuine person swept up in her Whirlwind romance she didn't object when after just five weeks of chatting Brian unexpectedly asked her for money to help pay for some important documents to be shipped back to the UK he was trying to get this box back to the UK for me to look after and he said that he would pay me the money when he got back Brian told her he needed two thousand pounds to pay a diplomat to bring his documents home and he said the reason he couldn't pay the money himself was because he was on active duty in Syria and wasn't able to access his UK bank account I got this floor note and it gave me an address to send it and it was Germany foreign pressured into helping them because he wouldn't leave me alone more requests for money followed and in the end else that transferred Brian nearly 10 000 pounds all on the promise that once he was back from Syria Brian would pay her back in full hey with Carmen to me I had no reason to doubt what he was saying but elsebit then received an alarming email from Brian he said the diplomat's supposed to be bringing his belongings home had been shot [Music] and then the heat was asking for even more money after that because he needed to pay the hospital bill having already sent nearly 10 000 pounds to Brian elsebit simply didn't have any more money to send so she called the foreign office but they told her it wasn't aware of any British soldiers serving in Syria with that name and that she'd most likely been the victim of a scam I just brought down completely and I was really at rock bottom I kept on saying no it's not a scam um we're going to be married [Music] deep down else but knew that the man she'd fallen in love with simply didn't exist I had no money no food and [Music] it is an awful place to be today three years on she's got her life back on track and now volunteers at the food bank she used to rely on I do it to meet new people to make new friends which I have done good afternoon the venue and last year she answered an ad in her local paper to become what's known as a scam Marshal with the help of national trading standards she's now telling other people the warning signs of scams today along with PC Tony Murray who investigated her case they're spreading the word become a friend of mine when I first met elsebert I went to a house and she didn't realize she'd been a victim of Roman fraud I mean these romance fraudsters are really sophisticated the professional sounding the well scripted but they are criminal monsters espers when did you actually realize that this was fraud in this chap wasn't true I phoned up the foreign offers and they were the ones that told me it was a fraud how long did the communication go on for about three months [Music] as a scam Marshal elsebeck gathers scam mail phone numbers and emails to pass on as evidence but it's her own powerful story that she and Tony hope will enable others to enjoy internet dating without being conned it's about doing it safely bring your real world behaviors online and be really protective and let's stop this crime of romance fraud I'm very proud of her yeah and her story is immense and it's been it's been an emotional Journey hasn't elsewhere yeah it's been really emotional [Music] trail of Christy Cox who not only scammed Andy Mills out of 25 000 pounds but also put him at risk of criminal prosecution wow that's outrageous today we're presenting Andy with everything we've uncovered about his case Andy the extent to which you have been scammed it's quite shocking and we have some discoveries for you you ready to hear them I am a DJs one of the most shocking elements of Andy's case was that Christy was using his bank account to loan the money a fact that until now he hadn't been aware of first of all we believe that your bank account has been used as a mule account now the scammer in this instance is effectively using you for money laundering [Music] all right okay yes that's not good foreign there's no intent on your behalf so you're good you're okay it's a relief so that's something that's that's a bit of good news so the next question is who is Christy Cooks Andy was sent numerous photographs of someone who appeared to be serving in the U.S military who had the surname Cox what's her that's her face reverse image search has led us to the Facebook page of a woman called Laurel based in the United States what's happened here is that the scammer has stolen this person's identity you can see that the real person who these pictures belong to has a family I'd like this person to be sort of made aware that they are being used for all this scamming The Landing we have been in touch we have informed her by a message that her account has been used for fake profiles now that Andy knows the identity of the real person in the photos we're keen to find out more about the person who scammed him we're here to bring you the truth and it's tough but part of that process is us trying to confront the scammer for you and that's what we want to do okay should we attempt to call her [Music] I'll do it for you if you call that I don't know what to say let's do it let's do it you want to do it yeah foreign [Music] so we're gonna text her instead this one yeah I have said Christy my name is Ashley John Baptiste and I'm messaging you as part of a TV series I'm recording with the BBC We Believe Christy Cox is a fake identity you've created as part of a scam what do you say to that what's interesting here is that only one Tech has gone through which would suggest that we have already been blocked I'm not surprised we may not have heard from the scammer but I have had a response to the email I sent to Raymond the man Andy fed may also be being conned by the same person you will recall that you received an email from a man called Raymond to an account that you shared with Christy Cox yes well we emailed him and we believe that he may be being scammed by the same person Raymond shared some photos with us that she sent him and we want you to take a look number one to see if it's the same person but also to see if the pictures that you've also received okay here you go I've seen that one uh yeah I'm still weird that picture was taken she told me I was up in Scotland how does it feel to know that she's also sent that to somebody else it's it hurts but it's also disappointed at the same time and um it's hurtful to know that these people exist Raymond actually lives in Ireland and he knows the scammer as Payson Cooks now he wants to talk to you via video link definitely you're up for it I'm up for that yet Raymond wants to keep his identity private but we're hopeful Andy's call can put a stop to any scam that might be happening to him hello hello Raymond I'm Andy pleased to meet you how did you get in contact with the Payson Cox when you first met her how did she what job did she tell her she had I had the same I had the same story if I offered you any advice would you take it yeah I would okay now I believe with what I've been through myself okay you're being you're being scammed I've I've lost a lot of money myself personally I took out a loan for this lady I took out a credit card I also gave a use of my bank [Music] a 700 Euro for her daughter to get some magical treatment Raymond please stop please please okay don't get into the situation I've got into sounds like you're in there already but please stop for yourself for your own worth you will not get money off me I I would cut strings all together with this person I wouldn't talk to this person at all because they will they will get back into you into your system and they will get you the part with more stuff again okay hey Raymond has been a pleasure you take it easy take care bye-bye bye scammer has made up this identity and used the US military for both identities what do you make of that it's easy for this individual to remember um and it's one that obviously comes to bullying using so they may well be using that more than just myself and Raymond as well I fell for it whether or not he will take the advice I've given him I I don't know I know how easy it is so thank you for being great coming out and talking about something like this it's not an easy thing to do thanks so much and wish you the best of luck cheers [Music] it's quite emotional if I'm being honest feel that now we've reached closure I can draw a line now in the sand and just get on my life if you think you've been scammed in a similar way or have been asked to send money to someone you're talking to online then we'd like to hear from you email us at love ormoney bbc.co.uk [Music] well all the stories we've heard today highlight the really Shameless levels of Deceit not to mention Financial damage that these types of scam can cause at least in Andy's case he was able to prevent Raymond from being scammed by the same Forester that took his money yeah and that's got to be a good thing so if you're talking to someone online and they're asking you for cash ask yourself one thing are they in it for love [Music] foreign [Music] every year millions of pounds are stolen from unsuspecting victims under the guise of love [Music] the type of crime we're investigating is a confidence trick call it what you will romance scam blackmail gold digger whatever the name it doesn't begin to describe the horrific impact these crimes can have on the people who have been targeted as well as being life-changing these crimes are very much on the rise with victims losing an average of more than 11 000 pounds well we are here to stop the scammers in their tracks and as we get to the bottom of how they were able to pull off some of the most audacious cons we'll have everything you need to know to make sure you and your money stay safe foreign coming up we uncover the truth about the so-called surgeon who broke this woman's heart and stole her money too we believe you've taken around 1400 pounds from Susan and you're now trying to extort a further 250 pounds from her what'd you say to that Perry attacked ended up conning this one out of thousands at that time he knew he got me and he felt that I would do anything for him and how this man battled back after what seemed like his dream woman took away his cash and his confidence it just dropped out of my body I just felt like getting in the car driving to the end of the road and ending me life so we've been contacted by a lady called Susan she suspects she's being scammed by a man called Perry pal take a look my daughter always said that I should meet somebody else so she set me up on a dating site when I saw Perry power on the site I thought he was attractive he was very Charming he said I don't have any access to my own money I feel embarrassed that I felt for somebody who sort of feel I feel it was made a fool to me I'd really like to meet this person who is so fell in love with oh to me that sounds like she still believes that that is a genuine person half hoping the man who scammed her could still turn out to be for real I need to find Dr Perry Powell and fast so she isn't persuaded to hand over any more money while Ashley cracks on with that I'm in Bristol to find out more about retired care worker Susan and how she met her man hello I'm Kim nice to meet you after her husband died one of Susan's daughters suggested that a way to rebuild her life might be to try internet dating she said mum we need to get you out and about go out on some dates yeah even if it's only a coffee or a meal and you just meet people so you were quite comfortable to do this yes yeah yeah I know lots of people that have met people on dating sites and living happily ever after almost immediately after signing up to the site Susan was contacted by Dr Perry Powell who told her he was 67 and Swedish born but living in London Perry also said that he was divorced since his ex-wife left for his best friend so what was it you said he did for a living he told me he was a surgeon a surgeon in a hospital in Israel and did he tell you why he was in Israel he told me he was working for the United Nations he'd been posted out to Israel it wasn't long before Perry moved their chats off the dating website and onto the phone messaging service WhatsApp and so what kind of conversations you were having were quite normal conversation for a man and a woman to be having at the start of a what is potentially a relationship that's right he sounded exactly as he portrayed himself actually yeah um he was he sounded a real gentleman over the next couple of months they became very close texting sometimes 20 to 30 times a day always said good night always said good morning I know it sounds awful but I sort of fallen in love with somebody I hadn't even met just sounded so perfect yeah with Christmas around the corner and Dr Perry Powell apparently unable to get home for the holidays Susan sent him some presents to Israel he said he was a very Avid Reader so I bought some books I bought him a silk tie nothing extravagant yeah I think the whole total came to about 50 pounds but fearing the relationship was too good to be true Susan began asking Perry to take some more recent photographs or selfies I kept asking him to send me a photograph of himself because I just wanted to prove yeah who he was I must have asked him a hundred times how do I know you're real okay and he didn't send you a selfie he sent me photographs okay but they weren't selfish Perry eventually updated her with one photo that showed him holding one of the books she had bought him and not long after that he called Susan with some news he said he'd been given some gold from a wealthy patient whose life he'd saved but in order to bring it back to the UK legally he'd have to pay the duty on it and there was a reason why he needed Susan's help with that asked me for 470 something pounds per certificate from Israeli Customs seeing he had no access to any of his own money did you suddenly think why haven't you got access to your own money because presumably that kind of a job you might think would be quite well paid would it not yeah he kept making excuses I never quite convincing excuses actually and it would only be alone and I sort of spotted it then and I believed him okay and they're seeing no reason not to believe him as Perry very quickly sent Susan a receipt and a custom certificate for the gold so did you tell anybody at this point like did you tell any of your family or friend no everyone knew I was taxing him okay but I never told anybody that he'd asked me for anything I don't know I just went with my heart instead of my head whilst Kim has been finding out more about Susan's romance I've been checking out some of the finer details on the paperwork sent from Perry ECI Gary miles is an economic crime specialist with the Met police and has agreed to look at some of Susan's evidence in more detail alrighty Gary how you doing nice to meet you nice to meet you starting with the importation documents in Susan's case she was sent these certificates this one this one so the first thing that I spot is on the um the custom stents it describes it as preventive services so I'd start looking at things like to see if there is actually somewhere that government Department in in existence Israel spelled wrongly oh yeah oh my days it is that is so bad yo lowercase I spelled wrong is real yeah generally speaking official documents don't contain spelling mistakes or serious grammatical errors so if you spot one of them straight away that should raise your suspicions it won't tell you 100 that it's it's a false document but it should start raising your suspicions Perry had sent pictures of himself holding one of the books that Susan gave him and while asking for photo evidence isn't a bad way of testing whether the person you're dealing with is genuine you need to look very carefully at whatever you're sent image software like Photoshop has made it easy to digitally edit and manipulate virtually any picture just instinctively looking at it that would appear that he's holding a couple or something along those lines and then they photoshopped that book in inside and they photoshopped to the face on in front yeah genuinely speaking there's there's the ability to do a reverse lookup on on on the image itself and what she might have actually found was that's an image that is online on the internet and they've reaped it off and then just put somebody's face on in front sounds like I need to do a bit more digging to see if that's what's happened here and if it is find out who's really in the pictures Dr Perry pal will send in to Susan scams like these don't always start on dating websites fraudsters using exactly the same techniques can crop up anywhere meaning any one of us could be at risk in our next case Olivia Willie wasn't looking for love at all she was after professional context to help with her business but things turned out very differently originally from the Philippines mental health professional Olivia Willey joined business networking site LinkedIn to make some valuable connections for work so there seemed no reason to be suspicious when she was contacted out of the blue by a man called Gary Ralston it says on his profile he was a petroleum engineer he looked to me like he was from the Philippines I was planning to start my own business and I thought it's good to have lots of connections according to Gary's profile he was a Malaysian American oil rig engineer based out of Doha Qatar working for the petrol giant Exxon Mobil foreign he was very polite when he came to me he added me he messaged me and he was very very kind and polite Gary's next move was straight out of the scammers handbook he suggested they ditch LinkedIn and swap phone numbers so they could continue their Chats on WhatsApp and it wasn't long before he told Olivia he was planning to come and see her in the UK at that time it didn't cross my mind that it was going to be a relationship because I thought that he just wanted me to show him around London that was the only goal but what seemed to start as a routine Business Connection soon took a more romantic turn he messaged me every single day more than once a day and and he invited me to go on holiday to Cyprus but I just laughed at the idea because I said I'm a complete stranger how could he trust me over time her feelings towards Gary deepened but because she was only recently divorced and not really looking for love she was cautious about his intentions asking a lot of questions to reassure herself so I'm aware of scammers stealing other people's profiles and not not a lot of people put double takes or photos of themselves on their social media so I thought this looked real and it's really him because it's two takes like where would he steal photos of another person having two takes at that time he knew he got me and he felt that I would do anything for him as their relationship developed Olivia suggested she book a trip out to see him in Doha for later in the year something Gary appeared delighted about I said to myself yes I'm going to Doha and then I bought a return ticket to Doha and booked a hotel he was so excited he cannot wait for my visit and that's when Gary began his scam a few days later he called Olivia from the oil rig and told her he was experiencing internet problems logging onto his online bank account he needed to urgently pay a business supplier and asked Olivia whether she could log on to his account and transfer the money for him he said I needed you to transfer seven hundred thousand dollars to a company to pay for an oil rig equipment I did that because he said he was going to lose his job if he wouldn't pay the supplier as soon as possible he gave me his username the password and a PIN number when I logged on to his online banking I could see the balance in his account it was at that time one million five hundred ninety thousand dollars having logged into what she thought was Gary's genuine bank account Olivia transferred the seven hundred thousand dollars nearly six hundred thousand pounds on Gary's behalf he was relieved he said I did him a very big favor I was so happy that I helped him but Gary's internet issues persisted a few days later he told her he now had 24 hours to pay for the equipment shipping costs and asked Olivia to log into his bank account again and this time transfer a further 6 300 pounds I said that's fine because the first one was 700 000 and I've done it why would I have second thoughts over six thousand three hundred dollars but this time the transaction didn't go through Gary told her he'd find out why and when he got back to Olivia he said that because his account had been accessed from an unauthorized location it had been frozen for 25 days while his bank carried out an investigation he said if we didn't pay the shipping and the taxes the oil rig equipment will be held I suggested that he contact his colleagues and his friends to pull some money for him after a few frantic hours Gary told her that his friends had managed to club together most of the cash but that still left Olivia feeling like she needed to raise a further two thousand pounds to get him over the line my heart ruled my mind at that time and I was under his control I took a loan from a Payday company and lent him some money to complete the two thousand dollars at that time I didn't feel it was very risky I was confident he was going to pay me back with his bank accounts Frozen Olivia even offered to send Gary more money to help with his day-to-day living expenses Gary accepted and told her he'd pay her all the money back when she came out to Doha for their upcoming break together he didn't demand me for money it was just me feeling bad that he wouldn't have anything to eat or anything to support himself [Music] sent Gary a total of 3 370 pounds and while deep down she wondered if she was being taken for a ride it was only when Gary canceled their holiday together in Doha that she finally understood her relationship wasn't real he made excuses he was broke after sending all that money I thought I've got to cut my losses I was more disappointed than heartbroken Keen to know exactly how she'd been tricked Olivia did some research and discovered that the bank account Gary had asked her to log into was in fact a fake website registered in the Ukraine next she sent some of his images to a facial recognition company who quickly found out the real identity of the man in the photographs she'd been given my heart sank the first photo of the real man he had children so I thought he's a married man and I found out that he was a public figure in Malaysia he was the first astronaut of Malaysia his name was Dr Sheikh musafir al-masri ample Google search quickly turns up the astronauts photos making them easy pickings for a scammer looking to build a fake profile they can use to con someone like Olivia LinkedIn says fake accounts are a violation of its service and it takes appropriate action against them often blocking or removing them all together and though Gary ralston's profile has now been removed that's come too late to help Olivia it's not like breaking up with a real boyfriend is like breaking up from two people the one you were speaking to and the one in the photos Susan tickner thought she had found her soul mate when she connected with Dr Perry Powell through a dating website but it was money not marriage on his mind when he asked Susan to pay for a certificate to get some gold through customs and it wasn't long before he was asking for even more money this time to ship the gold home which he insisted had to be via Indonesia he said it was just routine and he sent me an email saying it was 800 and something to have it shipped in the meantime he was panicking he was texting me are you going to send me this money then I got more suspicious and I changed my mind and I said no sensing he'd been rumbled Perry changed tack he told Susan he was posting her 250 pounds in cash that she would then need to send on to one of his relatives in the United States but when she took this cash to her bank staff there refused the transfer the bank said you're definitely being scammed I went home I started trying to find out whether there was any truth in there every time I asked him a question you always avoided it by take saying how much he cared about me and how how he would definitely be there for me and I kept calling him a scammer what did he say to that how could I not believe him after all we said to each other when Susan's family got wind of what was going on they insisted she report the whole business to the police and action fraud but despite losing nearly 1 400 pounds Susan holds out hope that Perry could still be the real deal despite your children saying to you Mum stop what was it that made you continue to talk to him no matter how many times I thought he was lying no matter how many times people told me I wanted to believe it was all true and so how do you feel about that person now whoever that person may be I feel maybe one day you'll turn up at my door half of me is thinking that the other half thinks how embarrassed I am how stupid I feel I don't think you're stupid how do you feel about us perhaps trying to find out who this person is I'd love to find out it was the person I actually fell in love with I'm going to give you a hug now oh thank you thank you [Music] hoping to get answers for Susan I'm running a check on some of the photos Perry sent her we're going to crop them reverse them and search them and see where they lead us reverse image search can be as simple as dragging and dropping a photo onto the search box on your internet browser this will then reveal a number of identical or related images giving you a far better idea of where the original picture came from and after a bit of digging it appears that the images Susan was sent can be traced back to a man whose name isn't Perry but Fred there's a Facebook profile for Fred and from what I can see this man lives in Holland he doesn't live in Israel he doesn't work for the UN he runs a company in Holland one of the first things I've noticed about Fred's Facebook page is they're open I haven't added him as a friend but I can see all these pictures all the information about him this guy is a prime candidate to have his identity stolen having open settings on your Facebook account means anyone anywhere can log onto your page download your photographs and harvest any personal information you may have put there it's an absolute gold mine for scanners looking to build a convincing fake dating profile foreign it seems clear that Susan's scammer was using another man's Facebook profile pictures to con her out of almost 1 400 pounds but with it being so easy to create a fake person from real images I've come to meet Tech expert then soda grin then Ida okay man to learn more about staying safe online what are the risks attached with open Facebook settings one of the biggest things that people might not realize is by being wonderfully generous with their settings and opening to everyone they're actually opening themselves to abuse and it's a little bit like a digital Green Cross code you've got to really think what would you do to make sure you're the safest possible roads are obviously great but they also are quite dangerous same principle here with Facebook the more information a con artist has on you the more elaborate the con can be it's not foolproof but changing your privacy settings so only friends and family can access your Facebook pictures and information will make it less likely that your photos could fall into the wrong hands of course once those images are out there there isn't much you can do and if you're one of the many people like Susan using a dating website it can be very tricky to know for sure that the picture you're looking at really is of the person they say they are how much of an issue is it having these fake profiles on these dating sites well I mean not just only on dating site this is it's been for all social media platforms because it's so easy to set up a profile that the barrier to entry is so low and you can actually do it now with machines so the machines can actually start thousands of fake profiles all you need is an email address and a picture they could get off the internet so a fake accounts are Rife on the whole of the internet on dating sites they are almost a fundamental what do you mean by that one of the best ways of getting people into a restaurant is to show that your restaurant's really full so you put people on the front so people can see them but actually the restaurant the rest of the restaurant's empty same principle with a dating thing you don't want to turn it to a dating site where there's no one there because that wouldn't be a great experience for you but you turn up and you interact with well I'd expect real people yeah but would you know how would you know so you'd have to check check again but some people aren't prepared to check the online dating Association that represents the big players insists that fake profiles are largely a thing of the past however it's been estimated that up to 20 of all profiles online could still be fake and that can have a huge cost for anyone who like Susan is scammed as a result it's often impossible to recover the money they've lost but forensic fraud investigator Richard Emery believes the bank should be doing more to help victims get their money back Richard hello hello pleased to meet you the banking industry categorizes romance scams Under the Umbrella of what it calls authorized payment fraud so what we mean by an authorized payment fraud is that the victim of the fraud authorizes the payment from their bank account they believe that they are making a genuine payment But ultimately the payment goes to a fraudster if we just want to put some numbers on it for romance scam last year on average a victim would make 5.4 payments to the fraudster so the average value of the transaction a romance scam victim pays to the fraudster is less than two thousand pounds okay so once the payee has been created multiple payments to the same payee are quite difficult to detect Richard thinks a big factor here is that when we set up a new payment Banks only check the account number and sort code not the name of the person the money is going to so in a romance scam if the fraudster says my name is Sergeant John Smith and you create an account in the name of Sergeant John Smith sort code an account number but actually he is somebody completely different because the bank doesn't allow you to validate the payee name you end up paying money to an account which is entirely unintended so why do you think the bank doesn't do that well that's actually a very very big question because in my opinion the banks should have been doing it since they became aware six years ago they became aware of the risk fingers crossed this should soon finally change UK Finance which represents the banks says confirmation of payee is set to be rolled out sometime in 2020 of course that's little benefit to Susan but while the information I found out won't help her get her money back it will give her the truth about so-called Dr Perry Powell shortly Kim and I will be revealing to her everything we've discovered as we've seen with some basic tricks and Technical know-how fraudsters can quickly pounce on unsuspecting victims before disappearing into the night with their money [Music] so often in Romance scams like these the victim never actually meets the person they've fallen in love with but Dave Hazel was different he met someone in person not just online he could never have imagined though that he would find himself exploded at the hands of an unscrupulous scammer [Music] if love is a dance then Dave Hazel has certainly had his fair share of misplaced steps foreign dancing I've been doing for about seven eight years and I love it [Music] Dave met a woman who he appeared to be completely in sync with we arranged to meet up the next day for a coffee and we had a good time and then I had to leave so I said good you know it's been nice meeting you and hopefully we'll keep in touch but the woman he'd met Linda Smith was a Canadian tourist who soon returned home and the two quickly lost contact like in Norfolk and eager to find a partner Dave decided to sign up to a popular dating website so I went on to the online dating because some friends dad met Partners off of them and they said why don't I try it and to his Delight Dave came across a profile that looked like it belonged to the Linda he'd met in London well I saw a picture and I saw her name Linda Smith and I thought that is a coincidence it's you know I want to see if I can if it is the right one and replied saying she was the same Linda Smith from Canada that Dave had been so taken with I was really excited and happy and I thought yes she's single and I'm single hopefully we can try and rebuild what we had in that weekend over the next six weeks the two constantly messaged each other and it wasn't long before Linda was suggesting she moved to Norfolk and live with him I was really really really happy I was out of this world no one else existed that's how I thought of her and she was saying the same but a few weeks after they first got back in contact Linda sent Dave an email asking for a hundred pounds to help pay a medical bill for a member of her family she had family problems that's why she asked me to if I could help her out I said yes okay but one part of Linda's story didn't seem to add up the bank account she asked for the hundred pounds to be sent to wasn't in Canada as he expected but Ghana I emailed her back and said well you're in Canada aren't you and she replied to that email and said no I'm with family in Ghana but I'm going to be going back to Canada once I've got things sorted out with the family so I sent a hundred pound and she emailed me back and said thank you very much but over the next few months the requests for money to help pay her family's medical bills in Ghana kept coming with little cash to spare Dave maxed out his credit cards and even took out a five thousand pound loan Linda promised to repay the money once she came to Norfolk to live with him and asked for Dave to cover the cost of her flight to the UK all I was concerned with was getting Linda over to me and settling down having a happy family life I kept on sending her money I was really struggling to survive but at the end of the day it'd be worth it when she finally got here by now Dave was 8 000 pounds out of pocket forward to Linda's imminent arrival having booked the week off work to spend it with her the night before she was due to arrive he received a troubling call Linda said she'd been detained by immigration in Ghana for not having the right paperwork I was virtually in tears because she was crying and we were miles away miles apart and I couldn't do anything to come for her Linda told him she needed three thousand pounds to pay off the officials and fly to the UK but she only had 500 pounds of her own money so I rallied around and got another loan to pay for it I sent her 2 500. by now Dave had shelled out nearly fifteen thousand pounds but the following day Linda still hadn't been released she told Dave that he'd now need to hire a solicitor in Ghana which would cost a further fifteen hundred pounds Dave refused prompting a man who said he was Linda's Dad to call pleading for him to send the money he was begging me and he said that you know she really loved me and she really wanted to be with me so if you want if you were the same if your feelings are the same you'd want her you'd want to help her out as much as you could he had no choice but to help selling off some of his possessions to raise the 1500 pounds but he couldn't escape the nagging feeling he was being scammed something that was soon confirmed when he went to transfer the money at his local bank when I was in the queue at the bank the lady saw me up really upset and she said what's the problem I said I've been silly I think I've lost I've lost a lot of money so she had a look and on the immigration paperwork she's she noticed one small little misprint oh her voice to me was go down the police station and report it as forward now most certainly not the woman he'd met in person originally but he was now nearly 15 000 pounds out of pocket and in debt I was really upset my heart just dropped out of my body I just felt like getting in the car driving to the end of the road and ending me life Sarah hilly from the charity victim support helped Dave come to terms with what had happened when we first met you're a very different person than you are today you were struggling quite a bit weren't you yeah but if you hadn't been there I wouldn't be here tell him everybody my experience we should be very proud of yourself thank you very much Sarah I am Sarah helped Dave understand that he was one of many people to be taken in by this kind of scam over 4 500 reported cases in 2018 alone Dave's story and the way that the crime has affected him is quite a common one lots of people feel that they're the only person that's been through something like this they feel embarrassed they don't want to talk to people about it because they think that people are going to think they're foolish but as the time's gone on his confidence has improved he's getting out and about he's living his life and he's looking forward to the future [Music] thanks to the support he's received from Sarah Dave is now back on his feet and strutting his stuff and while his experience has put him off online dating for good he's still hopeful that in the future he'll find the right partner to tango with I've been through the really bad times and now I'm looking to enjoy myself I'm looking to get settled down with somebody we've been looking into the case of Susan tickner before we begin our investigation she was hopeful Dr Perry Powell was genuine wow but the case against him is comprehensive and now it's time to see how Susan will react to everything we've discovered first of all I've got a couple of these documents with an Israeli custom stamp now if you look closely that stamp will say Israel customs and preventative Services right now the Israeli Customs Department isn't called that it's called Israel Customs Administration okay I wouldn't know that no because he's used that name we know that this is a fake document okay although You've Got Deep suspicions in the back of your mind sometimes you you seem to wipe them out you don't really want to believe it should I move on yes please do you remember this picture yes I do I sent him two of my books in a package for his birthday and I asked him for proof I needed proof because he was still asking me for more money and I said before I send any more money I need proof so I need a picture of you standing somewhere holding one of my books and he sent me this well the head has been photoshopped yeah and the book's been photoshopped on right I feel quite sad about it all I feel stupid I feel like I've really made an idiot of myself you're not stupid this is someone who is extremely cunning they've gone to extreme lengths that would lead most people the wrong way we've found out that he has been relying on images from a man called Fred who lives in Holland he is married with Children to these innocent people they don't know their identities being used no which is all fine how do you feel about what you found out I feel relieved actually I feel I'm quite a strong person I'm one of those kind of people who just move on dust it off and get on with my knife I've had worse things in my life but I'm not making a joke that I feel angry at least Susan is now under No Illusion that everything Perry told her was a lie all that's left to do now is for Kim to give him a call and a piece of her mind hello hi Perry how are you very cool than you I'm okay I'm just wondering I said on my message I'm just a little bit confused shouldn't be confused baby are you gonna come over am I going to meet up with you you do want to see me I really want to miss okay so I still be reading your books you still reading my books are you I'm so glad about that well listen I I've I need to tell you that I'm not actually Susan and my name is Kim Marsh and you're being recorded for broadcast on the BBC and we believe Perry Powell is a fake identity that you've created as part of a scam using photographs which you found online we believe you've taken around 1400 pounds from Susan what do you say to that Perry oh it's lies well I don't think it is lies Perry if in fact your name is Perry I don't think it's lies at all you you still denying it wow what a piece of work I don't know I so not so you see the manipulation I love you yeah and then he went on to guilt trip you um Susan I'm sorry that we've had to present this information for you um do you think it's giving you the closure that you need even when I walked in here today I'm still thinking they're gonna say oh you weren't scammed it was it was real you know it in your case because you just want it to be right for you and um it was just not real thank you Susan it's been lovely to me although the man of her dreams turned out to be an invention by scammers Susan can now draw a line under the whole sorry Saga although I'm quite shocked he sounded totally different person than I had built up a picture of in my mind so I just feel he's out of my life now and and I'm pleased if you think you've been scammed in a similar way or have been asked to send money to someone you're talking to online then we'd like to hear from you email us at loveormoney bbc.co.uk [Music] foreign genuinely wasn't sure whether Perry existed or not but today she finally got her answer he was a total fake and while Susan won't get her money back she is now armed with the right information to make sure this doesn't happen to her again yep and that goes for the rest of us too think twice before handing over money to someone you've met online even if you believe their story checks out because you can never be sure whether those who are asking for it even For Love or Money thank you [Music] [Music] every year millions of pounds are stolen from unsuspecting victims under the guise of love the type of crime we're investigating is a confidence trick call it what you will romance scam blackmail gold digger whatever the name it doesn't begin to describe the horrific impact these crimes can have on the people who have been targeted as well as being life-changing these crimes are very much on the rise with victims losing an average of more than 11 000 pounds well we are here to stop scammers in their tracks and as we get to the bottom of how they were able to pull off some of the most audacious cons we'll have everything you need to know to make sure you and your money stay safe [Music] coming up an elaborate con involving a Nigerian politician and even the FBI how a scammers Web of Lies cost this woman 25 000 pounds and her home I really am I really hate him no one should have to go through what I went through why this woman was determined to fight back against the fraudsters after they left her life in tatters I couldn't face my family or anybody and Kim's Showdown with a scammer not happy at being caught out I know exactly what I'm saying [Music] so Kim we've been contacted by a lady called Colby now she believes that she's not been scammed once but twice all right let's have a look then I met Kieran through a dating site started emailing each other at first and then we did Exchange phone numbers Karen's profile sounded really good and it said no lies and honesty and he looked genuine from his photo Kieran asked for many and around 10 to 15 times I just got into such a mess I just went downhill a second time around I believe I was a Target I didn't see it coming in the in front of me I should have seen it but maybe because I was still vulnerable I was still blinded by everything closure that's what I want I just want closure potentially more than one scam to unravel coldeep's case is complicated and I've got a lot to investigate I'm going to meet coldeep to try to put a stop to the scammers trail of Deceit in 2013 recently divorced kuldeep was considering moving to New York where she hoped she might find a partner she joined a dating website and was contacted by a man who claimed to be a new york-based government consultant called Kieran this person said hello my name is Kieran he said that he's looking for a marriage and a steady life so um we started communicating okay so you liked his profile you liked the way he looked yeah he's quite tall um dark hair he likes Bollywood he just like to travel and you thought I like this guy so there's no reason for you to think that you might be meeting somebody who wasn't genuine he seemed genuine [Music] kuldeep already had a long-standing arrangement to visit America to see family so she planned to meet Kieran while she was over there but when she got to the U.S he told her he was out of the country on business and wasn't sure when he'd be back though disappointed kaldeep continued messaging him and it wasn't long before out of the blue he told her his passport had been stolen and he needed to borrow some money and how much did he ask you for 500 pounds right okay because you said that passports were quite expensive right okay and so at that point how long had you been speaking by this oh God it was not even a month was there an explanation he said um he has no one he's he's stuck and he was like it felt like he was begging me or pushing me okay so he was a situation where I couldn't say no kuldeep sent 500 pounds using MoneyGram to transfer into his account and thought that would be the end of it but just Days Later Kieran messaged her again to say he was in hospital and didn't have enough money to pay for his medical costs I reply back because haven't you got anyone else you conducts and he goes no I said will I get it back and you go yes when we meet I will give it you back and then I just fell into the front again I just fell gave him um another 500 pounds okay so in total now that's a thousand pounds he's had of your money yeah which I'm assuming you can't really afford to be giving away to people no I was living in a flat I got behind my rent and credit cards and then loans okay was there anything in your heads that when something's not right at this point or did you just still think that you were just helping him out just a tiny little bit of me that was saying you know something's not right not 100 it was just just like a little bit of me hmm and I tended to follow my heartfelt and not my brain yeah as do a lot of us by now kuldeep had returned to the UK but kieran's requests for cash kept coming how much in total did you send him all together think about ten thousand pounds there was a point where I said that I've got no more money to spare um I'm in trouble myself so at that point you said no more money that's it yeah and then he stopped making contact with you who just thought like vanished and it's like no because I attempted to email him but nothing came back I don't have a lot to work with but I'm Keen to find out what I can about Kieran called him scammer coldeep only had one photo of her scammer Kieran so what I'm going to do is reverse image search that to see what comes up by uploading kieran's picture into an online search engine I can see where else this Photograph has been used on the internet wow so just a series of dating websites that picture is attached to one profile of a man called Chris on another William Johnson 60 years old one of the websites that this photo comes up on is a scanner's warning website actually um and it also suggests that the picture belongs to a man called Diego so not Kieran when the man she'd handed over almost ten thousand pounds to stopped responding to her you'd hope that the worst of kaldeep's troubles were behind her but a month later she received an email which at the time she believed had been sent by the FBI it informed her that Kieran had been arrested for scamming women like her and there was even a way she could get her money back plus more as long as she paid out a lump sum first so after things have calmed down I get a scammed email claiming that they're from the FBI and they have captured and they said they captured Kieran okay now these people again I fell full of traffic because they said could I help her away by sending this and we'll send you a parcel Federal Express and it just kept going on and I said there's nothing come for me yet it'll be there it'll be there and I sent I think it was five thousand pounds until five thousand pounds and what what were they telling you they were going to send you information all the funds that um all the money that I'd sent um to Karen so you thought you were going to get that back yeah so at some point you sat there and went I've been scammed again yeah I did because this person kept ringing me and emailing me and I'm still getting calls from that person by now kuldeep's financial situation had deteriorated so badly she could no longer afford to pay rent and had little choice but to move back into her parents house after all this has happened and you're sitting there thinking I've been scanned out of all this money from this person and now you've found yourself back at home with your parents and having lost all of that money you must have been absolutely devastated at that point I was devastated ill um I was an 18 yard declare bankruptcy through this credit ratings went down how do you feel about the people or the person that has done this to you oh really I am I really hate him no one should have to go through what I went through no and presumably I mean I know I'm not the first but yeah so this that's been you're not the first you won't be the last we're going to do our very best to find out who this person is or people are or at least where they are where it's come from well I'm sort of like frightened of they put a profile picture up of themselves and is it really that person or is it another person acting I just wanted um whoever it is well we'll do our best [Music] cold deep stories really upset me you know this is a lady who's been left vulnerable who has been made bankrupt who has lost lots of money and it's not even just about losing money the loss of the money is the tip of the iceberg it's completely ruined that woman's life and it is not okay for scammers to be getting away with it it's just not okay being targeted twice by scammers the second of whom appeared to know the first was a fraud is unusual but not unheard of I've come to see inspector Paul Carroll from the national fraud intelligence Bureau to find out more Paul in one of our cases they were scammed and then someone got in touch with them asking to help them get their money back leading them to be scammed for even more money What's Happening Here we call that fraud recovery where as she details of victims can or occasions be shared within the criminal community and previous victims would be contacted with Promises of retrieving their money it might be through an investment scam you know if you if you invest your money in this commodity we promise you huge Returns on your investment just to salvage so some of the money they've lost previously these scammers have lists of targets where communities of scammers sell on information to access easy targets um absolutely we're aware that this happens we're aware that um fraudsters um once saved deforded individuals may well pass on their details as vulnerable targets for for other criminals it's just crazy isn't it's like a scan up on a scam yeah absolutely and that's what forces through they're constantly looking for new ways in which they can approach their victims and ways in which they can create these realistic scenarios where the victim thinks you know I can I can get some get some money out of this you know I can I can retrieve some of the funds I've previously lost the methods applied by fraudsters some some are very clever that the techniques they use um the messaging they use that is well thought out this isn't the first time they've done it and they've probably tried it before and failed right and they've developed their their techniques how big of an issue is romance fraud in the UK at present reporting we saw possibly a 27 increase compared to the previous year were acutely aware though that actually some people choose not to report it may be that they're embarrassed by reporting we we really do urge people if you have benefits or feel you are currently yeah of it's in please please uh report to action fraud s told me suggests the scale of these frauds is increasing all the time but the story is becoming ever more elaborate and intricately plotted the complicated twists and turns of a romance scam can sometimes feel straight from a Hollywood movie well that was definitely the case for one woman we've spoken to after what happened to her she was determined to rewrite the script and give her story the ending it deserved by tracking down those responsible I'm on my way to meet retired hairdresser Marion whose extraordinary story began after she split up with her husband who she'd lived with in France and returned to the UK came back to my apartment in Bournemouth I was there with my youngest daughter who decided that I shouldn't be wasting my life now that perhaps I should try the dating sites so that's what I did Marion signed up to a popular dating website and it wasn't long before she got a message from a man who said he was a newly divorced U.S army colonel called Freddie Stark so he made contact with you in the first place yes I wasn't too sure about this I've never been on dating sites before so I didn't rush straight away then I asked him about himself to tell me all about his life which very quickly came back then he decided that he would rather chat on instant messenger than the actual dating site be easier for us to have a proper conversation after overcoming her initial reticence the couple began chatting on a daily basis Freddie told her he was busy on operations in Iraq but that his mind was also on his upcoming retirement [Music] they all looked so genuine it was his character you you liked the character yeah the person that he was Marion soon felt swept up in the attentions of her Newfound man but being new to online dating part of her remained suspicious that Freddie wasn't really who he said he was so she began to ask him more and more questions in a bid to try and catch him out but every time Freddie seemed to have the answers I even fired questions about his uniform because I'd really done my homework it'd be things like um which way is your Eagle facing on your jacket because I knew for the different kernels his face is a different way and he danced to me straight away so there was nothing yeah he couldn't answer reassured he was a man she could trust Marion continued her conversations with Freddie and it wasn't long before he began talking about her moving to the USA to live with him permanently by now Freddie said he'd been posted to Ghana from Iraq as he prepared to return to the United States so it was from there that he concocted a plan for Marion to help him buy out his ex-wife's half of his home in America he suggested that if Marion sold her home she'd raise enough money to buy his ex-wife share of the house and when he returned home they could be together and he made the property sound irresistible every detail of that home he gave me I'd ask everything what color the cabinets were in the kitchen how many rooms this are everything shape of it how it sat on the plot so that's where you're at that's where your money came into place so correct me if I'm wrong you had been manipulated into almost offering that money that's how it sounded to me is it yes I think that's right to say that because this of asking direct never happened it was more manipulate you know many times I might say oh well you know maybe I should help you out or something and then of course there's the promise of you buying out the XY yes which was the big uh it was the big thing big thing for you yeah and again quite a plausible thing Freddie suggested Marion send him the money to buy out his ex-wife via his solicitor who was also in Ghana they sent me a letter from the barristers Chambers on scales of Justice paper requesting the one hundred thousand dollars for property had it all there yeah everything and that was a hundred thousand dollars yes ties a lot of money it is a lot of money a lot of money that I should have been enjoying my old age with so I made a transfer to Freddie Stark's lawyer of one hundred thousand dollars very clever how they did it but sending the money Marion was totally caught up in the excitement of planning her new life with Freddie in the US so I applied for my Visa on that name and address and I got the American visa I bought my flights I packed my home up everything but at that point Freddy went strangely silent suddenly no phone calls and that was most unusual I thought you know it was funny no phone calls no nothing no waking me up nothing so now yeah my whole world has caved in I'm sitting there looking at all my home packed up my air flight ticket in my hand my money's gone I was ringing every police station in the area all they kept saying to me she'd been scammed you've been scammed and I just couldn't believe that I couldn't believe it clearly you were devastated oh the end of the world had come it was the last straw I couldn't face my family or anybody [Music] and I spoke with a friend in Cornwall she was pleading pack your clothes and drive here straight away just drive well I did she took care of me for over two weeks [Music] what seems to have happened in this case is that they haven't actually directly asked her for money but more manipulated her into investing money into what she thought was going to be a future [Music] the stories of Marion and coldie are both very different and yet in each case the scammer used similar techniques to find a way to tap into and exploit their vulnerabilities hi there hi there hi hi nice to meet you nice to meet you so I've come to meet psychologist lahani Noor to learn a little more about why someone might be susceptible to being scammed so what are the main kind of personality traits in victims of of romance fraud would you say I would say the person who becomes a veteran is likely to have what we would call a please others driver it's really important for them to please other people and it's very hard for them to assert themselves or to ask for what they want and the develops and strategies and the strategies are to be really pleasing and to do as they're told and be good in the hope that they'll eventually get that love Yeah but of course what they attract more often than not is people who see them vulnerability and completely manipulate it so when scammers are looking to scam victims yes what are the kind of personality traits are they going to be preying on so they're looking for somebody that they can push against and they won't respond back or will respond um according to what they want so we'll give them what they want so I might say to you something like um oh Kim I really like necklace can I borrow it and you might say uh yeah sure and I might then take it off you if you had a poor boundary if you had a strong boundary you might say yes I like it too it's mine so it's that kind of pushing against someone to see whether or not they're going to give you what you want to and I suppose they would get to know that in those initial conversations with someone obviously you don't know who the person is you're talking to when you start talking to someone they must get a sense of that vulnerability or a sense of that just from having normal conversation back and forth just in the dialogue so in the dialogue alone given the figures I heard from the police it's clear that these very clever very calculated conversations are happening every day and with at least 50 million pounds estimated to have been lost to forces in this kind of scam in 2018 alone I want to know what more can be done to stop people from losing out I've come to talk to Katie Warwick from UK Finance the trade Association of the UK banking industry to learn about what banks can do to protect victims of romance fraud are there additional protection measures that Banks could put in place to help victims customers who are being scammed so with this type of scam it is quite difficult but one of the things that's been introduced recently is a voluntary Code Practice around all these things which are called authorized push payments in other words where are customers making a payment themselves and that introduces a set of Standards if you like which says how the banks should behave and what we are looking for customers to do in order to try and decide who's liable in the case if you like and that sort of raised the bar in terms of the standards expected of banks but also it makes sure that customers also understand that they've got something to do in this and they should be looking out for um for scammers in this in in these types of scams for people that the banks the authorities would consider vulnerable should there be extra protective measures for them all these cases need to be treated on a case-by-case basis so you can't have a particular saying this means vulnerability that doesn't um so if a victim comes to the bank they will look at it facts of the case ask questions and and aside from that whether the victim is vulnerable or not and of course if they are they will get their money back and that relationship between individual and institution does that change when the factor of vulnerability comes into play well yes it does is there more of a burden on the banks in that sort of case yeah they if they believe the customer is vulnerable and the circumstances of the case will tell them that then they will deal with it in a particular way which means that the customer will be dealt with more leniently clearly and will get their money back if they are vulnerable we've been looking into the case of kuldeep who after being scammed was then contacted by a man claiming to be from the FBI promising he could help and what were they telling you they were going to send you information all the money that I'd sent um to Karen coldeep was told she'd need to send a fee to recover her cash but after paying it the money never materialized and she was asked for more coldeep's given me the number of the person who claimed he'd get her money back he said his name was sadhu so I'm going to call and pretend to be her to see what's happened to her money foreign oh hi there it's it's cold deep here hello hi I just need some help I need I'm just wondering how have you got my money you have oh I'm just I'm just really confused I'm not I'm not really sure what it is that I need to do now 250 pounds sorry I know you said I was just confused because I'm not sure where I need to send that to percentage um through MoneyGram Walmart MoneyGram Walmart okay why why am I sending it there sorry why am I sending it to the United States okay so is my money is my money in the United States or is it somewhere else so if she's definitely going to give you that money though isn't she because I don't want this to happen again yes yes sure sure trust me right as soon as possible send me those details again then I'll go straight there and do it is that okay okay thank you for your help bye wow wow wow wow yeah that's definitely legit once off the phone the scammer sent through the bank details for me to send him the 250 pounds and also promised to send some photos and ID to convince me he was genuine and sure enough there it is so I handed the pictures straight over to Ashley to see what he could find out it's a chemist spoke to this person and they asked for 250 quid to help coldip get her money back we asked for some pictures and we've got some now so I'm going to take a look and see what I find these are all the pictures that have been sent to Colgate this person came to work for the FBI wow I don't suspect a lot of FBI officials wear this sort of a tie when they're at work this man claims to be called sadhu bakani so what I want to see is if that name comes up when we see the origin of this picture and who it belongs to again I'm reverse image searching the pictures sent through to Kim to see where else they've been used online so a totally different name has come up the name dinu Malay something is not right here next I searched the name associated with the pictures to see what I can find and it's clear the photos we've been sent aren't just off some random guy they know Malay the new Malay is a Nigerian politician Senator he's a member of a Nigerian political party he does not work for the FBI and obviously he's not called sadhu bakani do you know what this is so blatant what he's done is that he has taken the identity of a Nigerian Statesman and they have done a very cursory quick simple Google search to take the top images of this person to create a fake persona this is astonishing it's clearly another fake identity and whoever's really sending these pictures is still trying to extract money from coldeep in an elaborate scam the fraud that sucks in Marion was equally sophisticated using a mix of technology and psychology to convince her she'd soon be starting a new life abroad as we've seen Marion's scam was incredibly complex but she was determined not to give up and took the extreme step of traveling to Ghana so she could see Justice served to the scammers I thought I'm not going to let these people take my life or have to live with this like a cancer so I then decided I'm going to fight back after doing some of her own investigative work Marion flew to the location she sent the hundred thousand dollars Ghana country where many of the scams we've investigated have originated he sought out the office of the then attorney general Betty mold idrisu I spoke to Betty and Garner via video call to discuss Marion's extraordinary case hi Betty hi hi thanks for talking to us so first of all Betty what do you remember of Marion's case and I had to stress and trying to help her it was unusual see a victim coming into the country to seek for justice okay um it was unusual for her to even have the courage to come to the office of the highest Minister responsible in Ghana and she was lucky because I had been working with Scotland Yard in the UK in my former capacity as legal advisor to the Commonwealth so we had done work on issues of cyber crime so she taught her heart how told me the story it was absolutely shocking and I called in the police they were very eager to assist to get to the bottom of this police in Ghana were able to track down five people associated with Marion's case but Ghana remains a hot spot for romance scams and Betty is Keen to keep fighting against the scammers what is it that makes so many people in your country do this too it's relatively inexpensive and they don't believe that it's a criminal offense they really look at you blankly when you tell them you're not allowed to do that you can go to prison it's a second degree felony okay okay so what tools have you developed how have things changed since Marion's case there's a tight Time Financial system in that you can't send money that easily anymore you can't open bank accounts that is there I think that's a global phenomenon now also the police investigators have become very equipped they're able to work okay and they are the commonwealth countries and Nigeria itself there's a lot more of what we call Mutual legal assistance going on hearing your view from a Ghanaian perspective Betty just gives it a whole new dimension thank you so much [Music] free in the Ghana courts Marion hasn't had any of her money back but she's at least pleased that the people responsible for scamming her have been brought to Justice I couldn't let these people take my life I had to go and find them over the next months and I sat in a supreme high court in Ghana and fought those five cases and they were all guilty and they were sent to prison [Music] scam Teresa Ghana we suspect coldly may have been gone by someone located in Nigeria based on the information we found so far the pictures supposedly of the agent helping her were actually those of a Nigerian senator who appears to have had his identity stolen by a man claiming to work for the FBI it's done twice that's horrible today coldeep has brought her friend Genevieve along for moral support as Kim and I revealed the truth behind both of the scams that targeted her coldeep we have been working hard to find out as much information as possible we have done our very best what I want to do is just talk you through what we know is that okay yep first up revealing the true identity of the face cold deep fell for in the first place so-called Kieran we only have one photograph to work with and from reverse image a searching that picture we found his image on a lot of dating websites It's associated with different names different locations I have a few for you here there you go here's another one another name same picture the website suggests that this image actually belongs to a Colombian man called Diego gosh makes sense yes it's like this is an innocent man that has no clue that his photo is being used to okay how do people do this so his profile has been stolen yeah to scam people yeah to scam different people so you're not the only person that will have been scammed by that photo I feel sorry for the guy that is his pitch has been stolen as well does it give you any sense of comfort knowing that I'm not the only you're not the only person this has happened to it does it makes me realize that he's those others that have been scanned by the same people done by the same thing and I'm not the only one I'm not the only one yeah next we're showing coldie what we've uncovered about the second scan the one that began with the email apparently from the FBI Cody we believe that your details have been sold into what's called a recovery scammer this is where someone says they can get your money back if you send their money here's the thing once you send them that money they keep asking that's so scary yeah you okay yeah go deep it's really important to say this is someone who is working with a group of people they're using technological trickery and all sorts of resources and tools to dupe well-meaning people like yourself there's a lot of sick people out there get a lot of sick people who want to hurt innocent people like myself they don't know what they're doing of course this particular scammer believes coldeep is still under his spell Kim called them up pretending to be you and the first thing they did was offer to get your money back if you paid more money if we sent them a further 250 pounds I then uh said Timo you know I'm not really sure how to do this what is it you want am I definitely gonna get my money back and he was like yes send me the 250 pounds I'm very abrupt just kept telling me you send the money you send the money when are you going to send it when are you going to send it very very abrupt that's exactly like him yeah and we've got the proof he isn't who he said he was either we asked for a photo and ID to clarify that they were from the FBI because that's what they claimed this is what they sent us this certificate that's supposed to verify that they are trying to recover your money I mean how does that look to you first of all no proper um logo on it no email no policeman's name and address they also sent these pictures you can see that the scammer lists his name as sadhu bakhoni now we looked up that name and it appears that this person is actually a Serial scammer they definitely do not work for the FBI and there is no way that they can get your money back we reverse image search these pictures and what we got was a Nigerian politician called Dino Malay this is the Senator's Twitter account so he's had his profile stolen as well when you look at the person's identity on Google Images you see the first top images of those pictures so it's not even been very clever about it has it no it seems like you know if he's just printed them off Google we may not know the scammers true identity but we still have his phone number time for Kim to call back and tell him we'll run to him I've been speaking to the person behind this fake identity sadhu bikani and today we're going to give him a call and ask for your money back call him and I'm going to pretend to be you I'm going to try and find out who he really is I'm going to try and find out where your money's gone of course they may not be both forthcoming with that and they might just put down the phone but the point is we're going to try and find out what we can give him a call yep hello sadhu hello hi um I'm not sure about sending this money I'm a bit nervous I'm I'm a bit concerned that I'm not going to get my money back but will I really get my money back if I send it I'm not actually coldy but coldeep's a friend of mine I have to tell you my name is actually Kim Marsh you're being recorded for broadcast on the BBC and we've been filming with coldy for the last few weeks we believe that sadhu bukhani is a fake identity that you've created as part of a scam I'm right aren't I foreign we've looked that name up online and multiple scam websites sworn that that is a name [Music] the number that you've been calling us on has also been listed as a number that has been used to scam people what do you say to them tell us about the pictures of Dino melaye the Nigerian Senator and politician that's no it's not me it is not your picture it belongs to a Nigerian senator tell us where the money is this was a man who was extremely aggressive and frankly super intimidating yeah I could not I couldn't sleep I could I just was unable to sleep cold deep I would dread to think of you being on the phone to him alone at night time at your house this is protected that many of these scammers use to pray on vulnerable people and to use their influence to get money from vulnerable people like yourself that just scared me when he said I'll haunt you down because I want my share of the money and I'll haunt you down I'll trace your phone I can trace where you are he absolutely won't can't do that it's a trick that he's using to try and con you to get more money you block that number you never make contact with this person and what you need to remember is that this is someone in another country they don't know where you live you are safe okay okay I think it'd be worth you changing all your details change your number change your email address only give it to those people that really need it or that you really want to have it that you really know and trust and if you get any more phone calls from people you don't know or messages I just don't know just don't answer don't reply don't reply her call Deep really hope that that information has informed you and it will Empower you to make choices that are going to benefit you moving forward thank you Ashley thank you for looking into it thank you Kim and you're welcome thank you you've been really Brave telling your story how I feel now is you know I just don't care anymore I feel I couldn't breathe you know forget what's happened and it's a sense of relief that I'm not the only one [Music] you think you've been scammed in a similar way or have been asked to send money to someone you're talking to online then we'd like to hear from you email Love or Money at bbc.co.uk [Music] foreign [Music] scams like these are truly Global and it can feel like an enormous task to even begin finding out who's behind such devastating crimes despite being scammed multiple times I think cold deep can see not just how it all happened but also what's to look out for in the future and if you're worried about who you might be talking to online hopefully you now know how to spot the crucial signs of whether someone's in it For Love or Money [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] every year millions of pounds are stolen from unsuspecting victims under the guise of love [Music] the type of crime we're investigating is a confidence trick call it what you will romance scam blackmail gold digger whatever the name it doesn't begin to describe the horrific impact these crimes can have on the people who have been targeted as well as being life-changing these crimes are very much on the rise with victims losing an average of more than 11 000 pounds well we are here to stop the scammers in their tracks and as we get to the bottom of how they were able to pull off some of the most audacious cons we'll have everything you need to know to make sure you and your money stay safe foreign coming up we unravel the ingenious ways scammers use technology to make their demands for cash seem plausible it's very strange talking to as I talk to the person called Henrik who looks like you and move like you and meets a man whose image was used to con a string of different women seeing yourself moving and or sensibly talking but hearing somebody else's Voice come out your brain just can't process it plus how this woman was persuaded she was talking to a Hollywood Superstar I just feel embarrassed I I can't believe that I fell for this Hook Line and seeing car we've been contacted by a lady called Rachel who says she's in contact with a man called Henrik Bjorn let's take a look my messaging with Henry was incredibly quick we had some messages on the site but within a day we'd gone on to email we were whatsapping very soon after the emailing and if you read the WhatsApp messages you know there's this great love going between us I just got swept along with it all it was just this wonderful wonderful Romance but the thing that worries me is that Henrik might not be Henrik we don't know whether henrik's real we don't know whether henrik's parts of a group we know nothing at all about it now Rachel sent some photographs and other documents to help me start uncovering the truth about Henrik Bjorn and who he really is [Music] while Ash cracks on with that I'm on my way to meet Rachel to find out how Henrik was able to so convincingly pull off pretending to be someone he wasn't [Music] hi Rachel hiya hiya how are you I'm okay so happy to meet you I'm going to start just by asking you to tell us about your experience and what what's happened to you I'd actually met my late husband through the internet and I decided to go back on the internet um I didn't really know what I was doing I mean it was really a distraction it was something to do as much as anything I decided to try match.com and two hours after I joined I got this message saying hello gorgeous and it was from a guy in Brussels Henrik Bjorn Henrik Bjorn appeared to be quite the Cosmopolitan he told Rachel he was a swedish-born american-raised oil executive who whilst based in Dundee was currently working in Brussels and it seemed like her he'd recently suffered a terrible loss he was a widower no I was a widow and so there was some connection there he talked about is wife and his daughter he showed me pictures of his daughter had he asked for information about you had you told him much about yourself at this point yeah we were talking about each other he talked a lot about his life I talked about my life I didn't want to be secretive because you're just sharing information about yourself with a person who you're having this kind of relationship with exactly [Music] having agreed to his request to move their chats off the dating website and onto email and WhatsApp Henrik soon picked up on Rachel's love of music and started sending songs to illustrate his feelings for her [Music] I asked Henrik about the lyrics that he was sending me and the words in that whether there was whether they were really meaningful or whether they were just some kind of random songs and he said that they were he was actually looking for words that had some meaning told Rachel he was heading out to Jakarta Indonesia to work on a new multi-million pound oil contract he had got this contract with the national Oil Company in Jakarta um and he was so Keen to tell me all about and show me this contract and she sent me a copy of it and I looked at this and I thought this is ridiculous I've never come across this kind of money and so it's just not my world at all so it was just weird and bizarre and after he'd started working in Jakarta Henrik contacted Rachel saying he needed financial help so you've had what two or three weeks of chatting with him yeah what happened with the first time he then asked you for some money the first bit of money he contacted me in a panic and he said that his goods were in customs which I don't know what they were but things for oil rig and that the money on them had been actually increased and that he couldn't get into his accounts because he tried an old account and he'd forgotten the number to get in and he'd been blocked and could I lend him this money it was like about three and a half thousand pounds what was it that made you decide to do it because I looked it up yeah I looked up on the Internet they told me that if he didn't get that money his Goods would be put into an auction the next day and I looked it up and that was accurate that's what would have happened so that's why I gave him the money I'm looking into the pictures and documents Rachel was sent by Henrik Bjorn hoping to find out some more about the person Rachel believes scammed her I'm doing a bit of digging into Rachel's scammer Henrik Bjorn he has sent her pictures of himself he sent one of them on LinkedIn so I'm going to do is reverse image search that to see what we find a reverse image search means that by uploading one of henrik's pictures to an online search engine I can see if that same photo has been used anywhere else on the internet and if it has whether there's a name attached wow you've got a whole load of images that have come up for this person all right so our pictures come up with the name Jeffrey hazler I'm going to Google that and see what we find wow this person has a Wikipedia page they're clearly a public figure of some sort Jeffrey Hazel is a global business celebrity Primetime television and podcast show host author keynote speaker so the scammer has ripped the profile of a celebrity so there is clearly a lot of data out there on Jeffrey given how famous he is it's a lot to process I think I'm going to need a bit of help [Music] having sent Henrik Bjorn money to pay customs fees on his Goods Rachel suddenly found herself besieged with even more requests for help Henrik even took to sending pleading voice messages with his emails and texts to underline how desperately he needed financial assistance please darling it's just 3 800 pounds that's all I'm I'm asking for so please start in and paying a few please please please please please please to reach for me I'm really depth I'm really begging of you please don't say no don't say no don't say no what happened next because that wasn't where it ended was it he got in touch in an absolute panic saying that he was being kept in custody by the oil company because he hadn't followed the rules with their insurance for the men working on the rigs and he just didn't know what to do and the amount of money that she wanted was a hundred and one thousand Euros and I just said to him joke it I've got that kind of money that's absolutely ridiculous absolutely ridiculous and he said well what can you get me and so I said to him more about 30 000 pounds that's the only amount I forget I cannot get any more than that you just begged me for it to find the money Rachel raided her life savings did you question him about why he couldn't pay that himself or why he couldn't get that from someone else well I did ask him and he said that he was getting help some help through his agents but they get all the money at the end of the contract so there was this massive amount of money that he was supposed to be getting back at the end of the contract so it seems you know quite a logical explanation that he had and begging you begging you for this money and I'm I'm guessing that's not money that you can really afford to be well no I don't want to get upset but I will that's all right come here come on [Music] but you know you did at the goodness of your heart because you were a nice lady and you wanted to help somebody that's not your fault this is you being a really nice lady I know it's not my fault but it's just so you've just had something tragic happen to you you lost your husband we all react in ways when we're when we're grieving or when we're having trouble times and Rachel had only been taken in because of the elaborate lengths Henrik had gone to in order to convince her he was the real deal even video calling so she could see him face to face I had a couple of Skype conversations with Henrik and you know I've been told all you've got to see whether they move and that and he did and it looked like the person that I'd seen photographs of so I had no suspicion at all that it wasn't him and were they long conversations they were quite long conversations yeah right so that was another reason that you thought this is this is this is a genuine person I'm not as far as I could know yeah he kept talking to me kept sending me the songs kept trying to be something to me by now Rachel had heard enough she told Henrik she wouldn't send him any more money no matter how much he asked if we can we could try and find out some information about who Henrik is perhaps if you want us to try and do that no I'd love to I'd love to Rachel is just one of around four and a half thousand romance fraud cases reported in 2018 and the techniques Henrik used to persuade her she could trust him are all too common in just about all the scams we've seen on this program the criminal behind it has stolen someone else's photo and used it as their own Steve Boston discovered that his pictures had been used to Conor the people and he was so appalled he was determined to do something about it please give a walkwell into sea plastic on Valentine's Day last year it's cool came into my mobile unknown number this woman's voice said you don't know me but I thought I knew you I'm seriously [Music] if Steve Boston looks familiar it's not just because of his work as a motivational speaker his face is one of the most scammed images on the internet a fact that he now uses at the heart of his public speaking but it was a long time before he realized that criminals were using his photograph to set up fake dating profiles and draw in unsuspecting victims so I know of 14 women who have been dating somebody using my photos the real Steve lives happily in Brighton with his husband of 10 years John but scammers have used his pictures to construct all sorts of scenarios to fleece their victims the women who contact me I would say are disappointed um in themselves and in their situation so I haven't yet had any anger thrown at me but I'm aware I could be walking down the street tomorrow and a woman has stopped me and say you scammed me out of my life savings and I have to prove it wasn't me when he's contacted by any of these women all Steve can do is help them come to terms with the fact they've been scammed I do get really upset when I hear what these women have been through and it's that awful thing where I can't take ownership of it because I you know clearly there is no fault of mine but some of them have been through horrendous things and they've made a real emotional investment um so yeah my heart absolutely goes out to them toes used by scammers were mostly stolen from Steve's Facebook profile and as more and more women got in touch he started to build a clearer picture of why he may have been targeted I do not think it's because of my devastating good looks quite frankly I think there's a number of reasons I think firstly I have quite generic looks I often get people saying you look like somebody you remind me of somebody you look familiar um I think it's also I'm quite Smiley but I think it's more the fact that on my Facebook profile they were able to find photos for a whole range of my life so they found me in the garden me on holiday so they could construct an entire life interestingly there's quite a number of um business speakers like me who have been targeted in the same way this is a photograph of Steve on holiday with his sister but scammers use this image as part of an elaborate sob story telling their victims his sister was actually his wife who passed away under tragic circumstances being a widower is a big part of their story that was one of the first times when I was a bit like oh okay this suddenly got very personal this this felt uncomfortable um my sister is aware of it Katie was also not terribly happy about it as well as a dead wife the scammers even killed off his pet dog Bella I think it was part of the emotional manipulation that was going on quite frankly um to use the dog but to make these women feel sorry for him because he'd lost his dog but I have to say she's alive and well and um cylinder remark could be good form for an old girl but the scammers didn't stop there they also put Steve's photograph on a fake passport copies of which they sent us evidence they were for real so he clearly wants to prove easy because he is interestingly he's used my birthday 11th of April I was not born in 1959. thank you very much and the scammers had one more extraordinary trick up their sleeve they found a way to use stolen footage of Steve to make Skype calls to their victims one woman recorded the entire conversation it keeps stopping well you keep stopping as well whether the line keeps breaking as well oh that's a shame astonishingly the scammer had lifted genuine footage from one of Steve's online speaking videos it is the most extraordinary thing and I can see why it would be very convincing um so what he's done is he has found a video of me talking to my webcam where I was saying I'm looking forward to speaking to you at this event coming up in the next few days but then he puts his voice over the top well you keep stopping as well and then the line keeps breaking as well he's then slowed it down to look like a bad connection to give it that sort of judgery effect and then that's his voice over the top I showed that to Sussex police they said they'd never see anything this sophisticated all of a sudden seeing yourself moving and or sensibly talking but hearing somebody else's Voice come out is discombobulating quite honestly it it does leave thinking your brain just can't process it the pausing it's not very cleverly to make it look like a very poor internet connection and actually he refers to the internet is terrible here in Bahrain and by rain yes Angela is horrible yes I know this is why I think it's live you know he is there he is on the end of the microphone sitting behind this video it's not if it's just been pre-recorded uh so some of these bits where it just it stops it freezes um the audio freezes sometimes the audio carries on it's very very clever Steve's been taken aback by the scale of the scams his images have been used in and feels dating sites need to take more responsibility for removing fake profiles the dating sites need to take it seriously uh there needs to be filters there needs to be Bots that are there looking for these fake profiles and you know there are now sites that have libraries or photos that are being used in scams those photos should all be included in the algorithm on the dating site so that if one of them is used it is flagged up and the profile is immediately deleted the match group of dating websites says it has a dedicated team patrolling its sites for fraud and that it reviews each member profile to block IP addresses from high alert countries and identify stolen credit card numbers or suspicious use of language but with scammers doing their best to get around any checks Steve's tightened up the privacy settings on his social media accounts so his pictures can't be used in this way again so mine is now set for friends so only my friends my Facebook friends can see my posts he's now calling on the government to clamp down on the scammers who use photos without permission I met John my husband online so I'm a fan of online dating I think it's it's extraordinary it's completely changed the way we we meet Partners you know the technology has moved so far so fast that actually the law needs to catch up um it needs to be protecting it needs to be protecting those people who are actually on the dating sites [Music] laughs using someone else's photographs to create a fake identity is known as catfishing it's not yet illegal in this country but Steve's Story shows how it's been done in increasingly clever and high-tech ways and the same is true in Rachel's case given that she also spoke to her scammer via Skype I've come to meet journalists and I.T experts Davion Graham Smith Darian hi using Steve's video the internet is horrible he's going to show me how a scammer might be able to cheat a video call to convince someone there for real yes I know it keeps stopping so the first thing you'll notice is that it keeps glitching and stopping and that's absolutely key because obviously the scammer can't actually get the person they're pretending to be to show up on camera and have a conversation with the victim that's why it's so reassuring to the victim the victim thinks oh this must be the real person because we're having a conversation but as I say it keeps stopping and glitching and that's because this is a pre-recorded video it's actually surprisingly simple to download a cheap little bit of software that will feed a pre-recorded video into Skype or into other video conferencing software and let you play it through to whoever's on the other end in this case it's actually rather ingenious I think the scammer is literally just hitting pause on and off on the video to make it look like it's glitching and just leaving Long gaps while talking answering as if there is a problem with the connection you just need a Talking Heads that you can start and stop and glitch and so on to persuade the person at the other end that that's who they they're talking to when it comes to video chats what are the things that people need to be looking out for the picture isn't breaking up at all you can actually see it's pausing and unpausing rather than changing in quality it's not going blocky and the voice the the words that the man is saying they're not going like a robot like they sometimes do on a call that's really um that really has a true connection yeah he's just leaving big gaps between his sentences if you know what you're listening for that's a little bit suspicious and Darwin's got one simple but effective tip to ensure you really are speaking to the person you think you are if there's anything you can do just to make sure that you really are having an interactive conversation with the person on the other end just as simple as asking them to give you a wave that might be all it takes super interesting clearly with a bit of understanding and explaining people can actually spot some of the signs so thank you so much you're welcome cheers [Music] with scammer sophistication developing with technology you can understand how Rachel was seduced into handing over thirty thousand pounds to a man she knew as Henrik Bjorn but her daughter Phoebe had been suspicious of the relationship from early on long before the moment her mom realized the truth she rang up crying down the phone and I honestly didn't know what to do I was just horrified and shocked and really upset and it's it's horrible because you're I was so angry with my mum but she was so upset herself it all went wrong didn't it yeah it was always wrong yeah but how am I supposed to help that I don't know find someone who doesn't sound like a fraud it broke me and Mum for a bit I honestly didn't trust her I felt like I was living like I was the parent she was a child like she talked about the romance and how much how happy she was and she was dancing and listening to music and so that was really lovely but she didn't tell us about the money and we'd always warned her like and it's so obvious to me because giving money to a stranger I'd barely give money to a friend unless they really needed it especially a huge amount but his story was elaborate and she really fell for it you're right I'm heading to meet Dan Winchester from data Analysis company schematics it's his job to spot fake profiles online then let companies know so that they can do something about it hey Dan nice to meet you hi Ashley hello yeah good good I'm hoping he can tell me some more about Rachel's scammer Henrik Bjorn we operate a shared Blacklist across multiple dating services so it might contain for example photos used by known scammers we might also use the the bio in the in the profile text yeah the IP address uh the the networks that the scammer is accessing from and then we'll try and build predictive models on top of that data and then we will pass that information back to the dating service and the dating service can either simply block that user or they might put them through some extra checks before they let them live on the service okay how many fake profiles currently exist in the UK based on the information you have a lot of dating services are really International yeah but to give you an example we've got around 10 million photos on our Blacklist been used by scammers yeah that's not just the UK though that's that's Global uh obviously you might get the same scammer using the same photo yeah time and time again so um that's what do you expect of that number that's insane yeah that's a big number [Music] I found out that the person scam and Rachel had created a fake profile using photos stolen from a man called Jeffrey Hazlett so I've asked Dan to look out for any other profiles that might have used Geoffrey's image what we found was 21 matches that's uh 21 scammers on on our system who'd used a photo of Jeffrey um 21. yeah that is across 11 different dating services what's interesting is this scammer is using different identities but with the same photo so here he's David aged 54 from the US here he's Robert 62 also from the US he's now John 55 from the UK his age goes right up to 70 South Africa it's the same photo but his age range is from 53 right to up to 70. tell me about the people behind this work we might sometimes see oh hang on they are accessing from IP addresses based in West Africa it's a very common area for scammers to operate from someone like Rachel throughout the scam she might be talking to five or six people right and she thinks each of them is Henrik so then what do users need to be on the lookout for on these sites well there's two things that almost all dating scammers share some kind of career which takes them abroad a lot which means that uh it's it sounds more plausible when they say I need some money wired to me and I'm aboard at the moment so that's the first thing this false identity and the second thing is they're almost certainly going to try and move the target away from the dating sites messaging system as soon as they possibly can yeah and the reason for that is the dating service will have monitoring systems in place to try and pick up these kind of uh scammy trades the scammer knows that he's going to get detected sooner or later the dating site will always detect the scammer in the end if nothing else users will report it so as early on as he can he's going to try and move that Target away from the dating service and he's going to move them somewhere else Dan thank you so much cheers learning about the technology that fraudsters use has given me a real insight into how they're able to appear so plausible to their victims any one of us could fall foul of a scammer at any time and perhaps most alarmingly when you least expect it and as our next case can verify it's more important than ever that you know what to do if someone you've just met online has started asking you for money this is Kenny Johnson star of the American TV series SWAT the shield and CSI Kenny is very active on social media keeping his Legion of fans up to date with His Latest News and Views by regularly updating His official Instagram page and one of his biggest fans is 56 year old Sharon Brown I like watching sport I like watching Kenny Johnson it's quite good it's a police drama and how I suppose swap Works in America and all that latte please cope please thank you soon as Sharon realized Kenny had an official Instagram page as verified by the Blue Tick badge she started following his account [Music] I followed him and then the next thing I've had a message from well what I thought was him on Instagram um I wouldn't I didn't answer straight away because I didn't I didn't put I didn't think it was him but then they got persistent [Music] Sharon's initial doubts came from the fact that although the message appeared to be from the real Kenny Johnson it wasn't sent from the same official blue ticked account she'd recently started following but she soon became persuaded thanks to the detail in all the messages he sent [Music] I ask questions to make sure it seemed every question I was answering asking him he was answering correctly Kenny suggested they swap emails and that she should sign up to a free online messaging service called Google Hangouts despite warnings from her daughter Sharon was Swept Away by Kenny's attention and when she received a video call from him she was sure she was talking to the man himself it was Kenny Johnson the real Kenny Johnson looked like he was you know he was talking and but I couldn't hear what he was saying despite the technical glitches the fact Kenny had attempted to video call at all was proof enough for Sharon that she was indeed talking with the real Kenny Johnson that's the word I use was quite tough actually um then we just started talking after a month of chatting Kenny told her he was heading out to Turkey for a new TV project he was producing and financing himself the messages kept coming thick and fast with Kenny seemingly interested in more than just a friendship he wanted a relationship with me he kept calling me honey babe then Kenny sent a message that his shoot in Turkey had run into serious problems and production had grown to a halt he said that his vehicle was involved in that accident and cameras were broken and could I help to get some new cameras he said that he spent all his money on this project that he was doing and that he needed forty thousand dollars which worked out I think was 30 000 in our money Kenny told her that if she could come up with the money she'd have her own stake in the project but Sharon simply didn't have this kind of money to hand so instead took out a loan for the most she could get which was ten thousand pounds it kept pushing it so I managed it alone then he said could I send it to this account in Turkey because that's where he was getting his cameras from a Glam bells down but I just I don't know what I thought to me what he said sounded feasible you know it sounded oh okay so I did Kenny appeared grateful for the money and the Romantic messages continued but soon after Kenny asked for a further 20 000 pounds he insisted he needed to begin the filming assuring Sharon this would be money she'd get back this time Sharon asked a relative to loan her the money which they were happy to do as they believed Sharon was investing in the entertainment industry I don't want to talk about the next part because it hurts even more I thought well a bigger thing to try and get in the film business sounds so stupid now when I think about it my relative offered me the money and I feel so foolishly now that I accepted it I wish I hadn't done but after transferring the additional twenty thousand pounds Kenny then asked for another four thousand pounds in order to pay for the camera's shipping costs this time Sharon turned to her credit card but she finally realized the truth when the next day she received a Facebook message that appeared to be from Kenny at the very same time that she was in the middle of a conversation with him on Google Hangouts next thing another message from another Kenny Johnson and then he went on and asked me to go and hang out which I was already with the other Kenny Johnson I just knew this one was fake because I thought hang on the second this is not right checking the accounts that had been in touch she realized none were verified with a blue tick and this could only mean one thing she'd been scammed I was so angry I was so angry I made one hell of a mistake Sharon's lost 34 000 pounds that she's unlikely to ever recover understandably she's now a lot more skeptical about messages from Hollywood Superstars that come to her on Instagram I just feel embarrassed I I can't believe that I fell for this Hook Line and seeing car I've had another one saying his um George Clooney for goodness sake you know and I think nope no way [Music] we've been looking at how technological trickery enabled a man calling himself henrikbjorn to scam Rachel Jordan out of 35 000 pounds so have they slipped off have they made a mistake big mistake today we're presenting some of our findings to Rachel starting with the revelation of just how many online profiles are using the same stolen photos we found profiles as you can see using the person you know as henrik's photographed and often using the name henrikbjorn dating back as far as 2015. so if you look at the amount of times this man's photograph has been used yeah you know with different countries that these days from yeah there's quite a lot at the moment so yeah looking at them it to me it shows somebody or some group of people who are very very clever who produced all these from all over the world now what's really interesting about the scammer involved is that they use similar pictures and similar backstory so that there's less slip ups and less errors in their account how does that make you feel uh sad for the next person the next victim so where in the world really was Henrik the experts ashmet were able to pinpoint what may be his location by tracking his computer's IP address Rachel an IP address is a unique stream of numbers that identifies a computer using the internet now it turns out Rachel that the scammer regularly uses something called a proxy to help disguise their IP address you only use a proxy if you've got something to hide however on one of the profiles using the same pictures as Henrik the scammer has told the person they're talking to Via a dating site that they're from the United States but their IP address has located them in Nigeria so they've made a slip up basically Whoever has has created that profile that scammer has slipped up not used a proxy and they've been able to locate them to Nigeria all right okay well we began looking into the pictures of Henrik and after reverse image searching we found this man foreign T yeah he's an American businessman a public figure and as a result he has a lot of pictures and data online that the scammer has harvested to create the fake identity of Henrik right you can see here he has a verified Twitter account he is an author he's well known he's a public figure picture of Jeffrey with his wife is that picture you recognize yeah absolutely we've been able to contact Jeffrey Hazlett and he told us this wasn't the first time this has happened to him Jeffrey is a victim in this as well as you he has questions he really wants to meet you so we can now Skype him well that would be really good except I probably need a bit of time to digest this what is it that's giving you your kind of hesitation on it because my natural thing puts someone like him I'd want to give him a hug and I can't because in America I think you'd love to hear this and you deserve to know the truth is that something you think you can do yeah [Music] Jeffrey we've been working with Rachel to really just uncover um what's been going on and of course uncovering the fact that your face has been used um to create a fake profile someone that a scammer is calling Henrik Bjorn what do you make of all of that absolutely every single week I get some criminal because criminals who are utilizing my picture and pictures of many many men to lure women into scams and I get this every week all over the world telling me these stories that they that my profiles being used and even pictures of my grandchildren who are being used in these scams and it's just it's just it breaks my heart and the best I can do typically is to you know just pour out my sympathy to them and and just be sorry for what's happened well we're here with with Rachel now and I think Rachel would maybe like to ask you a couple of questions if you don't mind okay right hello it's very strange talking to you as I talk to the person called Henrik who looked like you and move like you so it's very very weird for me a video yes yes I and he still has my similar features to mine as well it looks exactly like you I talked to him on Skype several times so it's quite freaky to me to actually see you but I'd like to I'd like to know who you reported it to about him taking your identity we who are doing this to not only you but to many women around the world it's totally unacceptable and I can guarantee you that if he's on one side he's on 20 sites unfortunately can you remember the first year that you reported this to anybody how long ago it was oh as early as 2010 we started reporting these kinds of games and so it's totally unacceptable then isn't it if you've been reporting it for nine years is totally unacceptable that these dating sites haven't come up with a better system you're absolutely right and in this case Rachel we're both victims we're both victims of this kind of of harassment and uh abuse quite frankly and I'm sorry you had to go through this kind of experience to be it and this kind of experience I'm sorry we had to meet this way absolutely and I said I'm not sure I wanted to talk to you because you're at a distance and the natural thing for me was I want to give you a great big hug because you know I mean the next time I'm in the UK you can meet my you can meet me and you can meet my wife and we'll sit down and we'll have a good nice tea or or a good beer will that be nice yeah why not let's sort it well look Jeffrey thank you so much for talking to us and for meeting with Rachel on Skype we really appreciate it you're the best Take Care thank you good luck bye so Rachel how was that for you it was freaking it was absolutely freaky because it was Henrik yeah yeah and I and hey Rick moved and he was on Skype and it was Henrik and no it was freaky well there's an app where scammers can rip images and video images of people like Jeffrey to create fake Skype checks but then that could be with anybody who you're talking to not just saying it's so sad Rachel thank you so much for for coming and sharing your story with us and I hope that we've given you some answers that you might have been looking for yeah I think particularly finding Jeff Rio thank you thank you [Music] I found talking to Jeffrey very surreal guys angry upset I just want to say all of us have to try and help everybody else foreign if you think you've been scammed in a similar way or have been asked to send money to someone you're talking to online then we'd like to hear from you email us at Love or Money at bbc.co.uk [Music] [Music] really highlighted the level of sophistication and utterly Brazen lengths that criminals will go to to get what they want money and while it can seem that scammers use technology to stay one step ahead as we've seen is possible to be protected and to avoid being manipulated and thanks to people like Rachel for sharing her story hopefully you'll recognize the signs of a scam too so if a conversation online turns from romance to finance then you'll be able to tell whether the person you're talking to is in it For Love or Money [Music] [Music] foreign

Channel: Absolute Documentaries

Views: 649,247

Keywords: Absolute documentaries, full documentaries, full length documentaries, documentaries, documentary, for love or money, for love or money trailer, Kym Marsh, Coronation Street, Ashley John Baptiste, Romance Scams Documentary, scammers, love scammer, online romance frauds, romance fraud, fraud documentary, fraud tv show, tinder swindler, The Tinder Swindler

Id: txJpYDmDEuU

Length: 219min 19sec (13159 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 12 2022