British divorcee Sheila has revealed how she was duped by an
online con artist who targeted her through a reputable dating website. The
divorcee in her late sixties told Channel 5 show Secrets Of The Scammers how
she was contacted by a man claiming to be called Glen Almond and got caught up
in a whirlwind romance.
She ended up giving away £4,000 before she discovered she
was the victim of an elaborate scam based in Nigeria. Even to this day, Sheila
has no idea who she was actually talking to or where her money went.
The couple then started planning their future together. Glen
told Sheila his time in Afghanistan could be coming to an end in a matter of
weeks and he would move to the UK to be with her. He said he planned to set up
his own business there importing goods from the Far East.
"We were planning to walk off
into the sunset hand-in-hand and live happily ever after."
Sheila said she didn't know anything about his business but
'I thought we were to be a husband and wife team and I would support him in any
way I could.
"He told me our whole future
was at stake if he didn't pay and we risked losing everything."
Desperate to help the man she loved, Sheila was able to sell
some shares and delve into her savings to give £4,000 in total to Glen.
She also put her house on the market so they would have some
money to buy a new place together. It was only thanks to sharing her excitement
over the plan with a prospective buyer that she discovered she had been
conned.
"As I was showing prospective buyers around my
house I was so excited as Glen was due to be coming home tomorrow. I couldn't
help telling them all about it and showed them Glen's picture on my
laptop." she recalled.
The prospective buyer was a former soldier himself and was
suspicious of Sheila's situation. After doing some research of his own, his
fears were confirmed and he contacted Sheila and told her she had been
duped.
"The moment I found out it was
a fake profile and it wasn't for real I was emotionally devastated. My whole
world fell apart. I contacted the police who found I was one of hundreds of
victims of this professional, international scam and they traced it back to
Nigeria. I have no idea to this day who I was corresponding with. Someone out
there in the world was writing these emails and I have no idea who it
was."
Alexis Conran, presenter of Secret Of The Scammers, was able
to track down a reformed Nigerian con artist who was part of a team perating
dating scams like that experienced by Sheila.
The remorseful scammer called Kingsley admitted that
divorcees were deliberately targetted because they are often emotionally
vulnerable and easy to manipulate.
"I mostly made money through
romance scams, we would pretend to be interested in dating them and along the
line we con them out of money using various methods." he said
"We are looking for someone
who is divorced as there is always an emotional attachment, they feel some sort
of emptiness." he added.
He said they would send the woman a picture of a handsome
man they would 'fall for' and concoct a back story about their life. He said
they often pretended to have a military background as this is attractive to
women and gives them a plausible reason why they can't meet.
"Most women say they want
security and someone with a good job. One of the best jobs we believe is in the
military and with a military man you can say you are travelling. It is a game
of emotions."
He added that you have to dedicate time to each 'mark' and
he would only be in contact with a maximum of five women at a time so his lies
didn't get confused.
"The more time you spend on
them the more attached they become and then the sooner you will get money,
sometimes it is only between one and three months," he said.
"If you want to stay organised
I would limit it to between one and five, when you are lying to them you don't
want to forget anything.'
Kingsley admitted he is now sorry for what he has done and
is no longer working as a scammer and regrets duping women out of their life
savings. He said: 'A lot of people have been permanently damaged and some
will not recover, if I had the chance to undo everything I would."
Source: MailOnline
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