Category: Financial scam Catfish

These catfish use the profiles to initiate a romance for the purpose of scamming money from you.

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Pig Butchering

Pig Butchering

Pig butchering is a term used to describe a type of investment fraud that is combined with romance fraud. This type of scam typically involves a fraudster (the butcher) posing as a wealthy and successful investor who promises high returns on investments (crypto, gambling, fraudulent rebates and other). The fraudster then targets victims (the pigs) who are looking to invest their money in a lucrative opportunity. There are concerns as to whether we should even be using this term at all, given it’s been named this by the criminals themselves. 

The term “pig butchering” is a translation from the Chinese criminal gang phrase ‘shāzhūpán’ as the fraud follows the pattern involved with this practise. The romance fraud element of the fraud is aligned with the hunting for and raising of the pig, building trust and intimacy, while the killing refers to the process where the victim is coerced into believing the investment process is real before the butchering and then eating occurs as the money is stolen.

The four stages can be viewed here:

Pig Hunting: Scammers use stolen pictures and fake identities as wealthy, upstanding singles to look for a targets on dating or other platforms. They will have good and successful occupations and flood  many profiles with opening messages with the hope of a bite.

Pig Raising: The grooming process. As with traditional Romance Fraud, trust is built, stories of the past are shared to create connection and intimacy with the victim.

Pig Killing: Ideas of investment have been introduced. An investment platform is shown and how it works then small amounts of money are invested and (purposefully) get a return. This is repeated with larger sums of money over some time.

Pig Eating: When the largest amount of money has been drawn from the victim to invest, the fraudster will close the platform or block the victim from it and move the money.

In these cases, the fraudster engages in romance fraud, posing as a potential love interest and uses this as a way to establish trust and gain access to the victim’s finances.

There are slight differences with ‘pig butchering’ and traditional romance fraud. However, the overlaps are greater and as always, fraudsters collaborate, sharing the best and most lucrative of their fraudulent activities with each other to ensure the the biggest ‘cash outs’ on a larger scale. Romance fraudsters, the typical being that related to 419 fraud (with relevance to APP-Advance Push Payment fraud) have origins in West Africa, where as Pig Butchering originates in China. The targeting, the grooming and connection with victims remain the same, the difference is often in Romance Fraud, a desire on part of the victim to help their loved one when a situation arises and Pig Butchering where investment is the priority and the hope is to help themselves or family in to a better financial situation.

The other difference to mention here is the criminal organisations themselves. Romance Fraud can be undertaken by large organised crime groups where students are recruited straight from college willingly or not so willingly, to work being part of much larger crime industry which includes BEC (Business Email Compromise) where there is need for chains of money laundering to take place. There are also smaller groups run by ‘bosses’ as well as newbie individuals. Of course there are also those like the Tinder Swindlers of the world, who work as themselves with multiple victims face to face. With ‘Pig Butchering’, the criminal gangs have been set up as a ‘company operating model’ with its ’employees’ trafficked and tricked through employment schemes for example, then held captive in what can only be described as concentration camps being forced to carry out this fraud. You can read about this here.  These models mostly have each stage (1-4) of the Pig Butchering process, undertaken through a different ‘department’.

This type of fraud can be devastating for victims, who may lose their life savings or fall into debt as a result. It can also be difficult to recover the lost funds, as the fraudster may use fake identities and offshore accounts to hide their tracks.

To protect yourself from pig butchering fraud, it is important to be skeptical of any investment opportunities that seem too good to be true. Research any potential investments thoroughly and never invest more than you can afford to lose. It is also important to be cautious of potential romantic partners who seem too good to be true, as this could be a sign of romance fraud.

If you suspect that you have been a victim of pig butchering fraud, it is important to report it to the authorities as soon as possible. This can help to prevent other people from falling victim to the same scam and increase the chances of recovering your lost funds.

On the recovery of funds, recovery scams are huge business. As always, cashing in on bad situations, the frauds are in line to try and part you with the last of your cash. There are ways, in some circumstances to get funds returned but legitimate routes are rare. Erin West, a prosecutor of 25 years in the USA, tried and tested a method through the court system there, obtaining a warrant to recover stolen assets being held in Crypto wallets with Crypto companies but law enforcement as a whole is largely uneducated and simply send victims away. Some specialised companies can investigate for a fee outside of the CRM route through banks. Thorough investigations should be done on any company offering these services. 

Overall, pig butchering fraud is a serious problem that can have devastating consequences for victims. With technology aiding scammers at every turn and the sophistication of these frauds escalating rapidly, staying vigilant and being cautious and curious with your investments and relationships at every turn is the best way to protect yourself from this type of fraud and avoid becoming a victim.

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So you think you know about Yahoo Boys and Romance Scams? Part 1

The last few months have been an eye opener.

As I research more on the new scams that are surfacing, I stumbled across some groups on facebook. These groups with variants of the title ‘Yahoo Boys Association’ became the hub points of my disbelief and horror, not only that Facebook are openly allowing these to even exist but the content which showed me the inside life of scammers. These scammers in particular being those from predominately West Africa, home of Yahoo Boys.

The name ‘Yahoo boy’ came from the original 419 email scams that emerged on the inception of this form of communication, Section 419 being the Nigerian cybercrime law which makes internet fraud a criminal offence. Most are not worried about this law however as the police are mainly ‘hustlers’ themselves, so a scammer revealed. Other names are ‘Gee boys’ and ‘Sakawa Boys’ as known in Ghana.

It became more obvious than ever, that whatever size you think this industry might be, you need to think bigger. Much bigger. Then you need to multiply that by 100 or more, that might start to scratch the surface.

From the posts in their groups I’ve researched their ‘offered services’ and scams where advice is sought for getting money from any snippet of information they get their hands on. Some of these will seem obvious however, many will not. I’ve done the research so you don’t have too.

The Smooth Talkers

Most of you will know these. These are the front line scammers that talk directly to the targets. They call you clients. To them, this is business. They will initiate conversation in many ways:

  • Friend requests followed by messaging on any social media (Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat, Tik Tok etc)
  • Direct Messaging on any social media without requests (as above)
  • Dating platforms-paid and free
  • Messaging through ANY chat facilities on ANY online platform including games such as Wordzee, Scrabble, Song pop etc
  • Replying on public posts to comments as way of connecting to something said.

As a scammer’s job it’s known as ‘bombing’. 

Many whose English is poor will use formats, another scammer’s job. These are pre-scripted conversations designed to suit any situation the front man (or group) either chooses to use for bombing (dating, military, oil rig/construction/contractor/civil engineering) or the process they have chosen to use to extort money from the client.

Screen shot taken from a You Tube video, where tutorials on scamming are abundant.

Introductions will be copy and pasted on mass to as many targets as they can keep track of. You’ll notice if ever you happen across one that asking them a question not within the predicted script can prove problematic. Construction, Engineering (marine, oil gas), Oil rig workers, UN workers and the never ending Peace keeping missions in Syria of the military, all have their own formats. There are others but all come attached to a sob story of being orphaned themselves (or far to far away from any estranged family member) widowed/ divorced with a child (or two), wife/husband killed in a car crash ( as might have their parents) or died of cancer (or covid) for example. Of course, this means you will become the only person they can trust and turn to.

The more experienced scammers with a good grasp of English are far more plausible and far more dangerous.

You will inevitably be asked to move with speed, onto Hangouts or What’s app (as the favourites) but don’t think offerings of other chat apps are safe. Many are venturing to use Viber, IMO, Signal, Line, KIK, Telegram, ICQ, Skype chat. The loud message is, if they ask you to leave the platform for another facility, there is an ulterior motive. This is mainly to avoid losing the client when their profiles are deleted but also to avoid detection through app algorithms picking up key words, the client noticing them still online after the professed amazing connection and other women making loving comments on the pictures. They will often say they have deleted the profile because they have met you but in reality they have blocked you.

Depending on the size of the group the scammers are working in (either for cartel/mafia-esque style groups, smaller groups in the village or city, as a friendship group or individuals) will depend on how the scam continues. Some will do most of the process themselves, most will work as a team, allowing whoever does each particular part of the process best to take over when needed. Some groups or individuals will have the required skills to not enlist the help of others (which can cost them or they have to trade for that skill). These services are sold or traded within these groups. When the scammer feels it’s time to test the water (which can be ridiculously quickly or surprisingly lengthy and by this I mean there have been some I know have talked for over 3 years without being asked because the experienced ones will just listen for a hint of a story where money may finally be mentioned or be using them simply for and unknowingly laundering money) the next phase kicks in.

‘Billing’ (the client) the term given to the format speech used to extort the money also comes in many forms, ranging from I Tunes and gift cards of many types-STEAM and Green Dot being the latest trend, to fees of the boarding school for their child, who they have no other choice but to send there as they are in the military etc. This is also a ploy used to launder money, asking if money can be kept safe by ‘the client’ until the fees are due, then asking it to be passed on. Investment formats for billing in a new or expanding business are also used. The scammers will go to great lengths to make this look real (more later in taking it further). For military scams this may be for requesting leave, early withdrawal from the tour, supplies.

Package/consignment scams are very popular where a bogus package is reported as being sent and the client is to pay for any import taxes due on receipt and for shipping in the first place. The package may be reported to be presents for the client or receipt of possessions of the scammer’s fake identity. Plane tickets for the longed for meeting are another way to extort money within the romance scam. You will, prior to this, have been bombarded with attention and affection, even potentially had flowers, pizza sent to you (great for getting your address and building trust).

Again here, the experience of the scammer to read the situation and adapt will be the clients downfall. New hustlers won’t always be so lucky and ask for help in these groups:

Others will offer ‘Yahoo Plus and Yahoo Plus Plus’ services to help them on their way…

Yes you are reading that right. Read more here on ‘Yahoo Plus’ and ‘Yahoo Plus Plus’

In Part 2, 3 and 4, how they strengthen the deception. How they use other information collected through the game to continue to scam and what happens when they are caught out.

 

 

 

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Quick Lessons – Using Fake Military Profiles

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Military Scams

Classic scammer preference.
  • Military men are seen as saviours. Good, trustworthy men.
  • Working in another country on tour gives perfect cover for a scammer to not be able to phone or video call ‘for security’ reasons. It’s a dangerous job which gives opportunity to create emotional stories to real you in and hook you.
  • Real military men DO NOT set up social media profiles to chat with women or men. They will never ask for money.
Look at these pictures for clues of scammers.
YELLOW : Using an officers name and /or pictures.
RED : Look for key words-honest/simple/god fearing/divorced/widowed
GREEN : Grammar-there will mistakes. English is poor.
BLUE : Follower/Following is often very different. Following from the account is on mass to attract followers.

 

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Quick Lessons – Reverse Image Search

Reverse Image Searches

This profile is fake. It’s easy to do a reverse image search which sometimes shows you who the real pictures belong to.

Not every picture on the profile may give results so it’s best to try a few.
These pictures show the process to discover who the pictures have been stolen from.
Reverse image search apps and platforms include:
Yandex
Google image search
Tineye
Bing
If you don’t get results from one then try another. The platforms use different search parameters for the images
                 
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Quick Lessons – Financial Scammer Catfish Red Flags

Financial Scammer Catfish

Red Flags
  1. They don’t want to voice call as you will hear their accent and bad English. There are exceptions and these are French speaking Africans from the Ivory Coast. They pose as Europeans and also use the children to talk to victims.
  2. They don’t want to video call. There are exceptions and this will usually be a recorded video which they have stolen with the pictures. They will play it to the camera and claim bad internet connection when they can’t answer questions.
  3. English will be poor and broken. You will see mistakes in grammar and sentence structure. It will seem ‘off’.
  4. All scammers have a sob story. This gives them opportunity to gain your sympathy and build a bond. They will also have many troubles they need your help with.
  5. They will often claim to be military, doctors or some other trust worthy profession. They will also claim to be working out of their home country. Key words on profiles will be honest, trustworthy, loyal, caring, looking for love, widowed, divorced, God fearing.
  6. Photos may have been photoshopped to hold your name as ‘proof’ it’s them. Also, but not always, the photos they have stolen may appear in reverse image searches. There are lots of free apps or platforms to do this. Google image search and Yandex are some of the best.
  7. After building your trust, they will test the water by asking for either a small sum of money or i tunes cards etc. Larger sums of money can follow as well as requesting phones and SIM cards.

 

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Quick Lessons – Types of Catfish

Types of Catfish

Financial
-Romance fraud. The most common tactic of financial scammers. Creating an online romance for the purpose of extorting money.
-Sextortion. Creating an online romance to extort intimate images or videos for the purpose of blackmailing the victim. These images can also be used to trick other victims into sharing their own.
-Marriage fraud. Initiated online through social media and/or dating platforms. These scammers look for the biggest end game of marriage, visas, and every other benefit that comes with it.
Personal
-Some catfish have terrible self esteem issues and find it easier to communicate with others though a fake identity.
-Revenge by tricking an ex or someone they hold a grudge against into a relationship to cause hurt and embarrassment.
-Jokes. This can seem like a good joke but can have dire consequences.
-Cybersex. Some men who would ordinarily be voyeurs in public places, choose to engage in collecting images from victims online by creating trust and the exploiting them. No money is involved here, just sexual gratification for the perpetrator and humiliation for the victim.
-Offline Personal Catfish initiate the relationship online, creating trust and then come offline to meet in person, continuing the deception through their fake identity.
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We crossed paths in a support group. J’s experience of a Catfish.

This email arrived from ‘J’ before Christmas. It had me in tears and her words stayed with me all day. This eloquent and heart felt account of the reality of victims of Catfish tells of the emotion spinning manipulations endured at their hands. Thank you so much for sharing this J. It will help others so much knowing their feelings are not unusual.

I sought first to understand with an open mind, wanting to believe the best in you. Wanting to believe the picture you still paint for me.

But I also read and heard one story after the next, about men and women who have been devastated by online fraudsters.

And the ones about love-bombing catfish, who devise scams for money, really hit hard for me.

Many of those victims I learned from have spent years searching their scammers alias online, as they try to move through the impact their predator had on their lives.

But I simply can’t do this.

I am already exhausted.

There is no justice in a world where you pretend nothing happened, while I wait for you to admit that it did. It’s time to move on for me.

This is my letter of truth. One that I hope will also demonstrate to other men and women who have been through the emotional abuse of being deceived and exploited for someone else’s gain that, just because their offender will not admit what they have done, and just because they believed the lies they were fed, does not mean one has to forever question their reality or live with this alone. We are not losing our minds: gaslighting is a real manipulation that can fool anyone. It can make you distrust your own instincts.

I wish I could just walk away and say I should choose who I let into my life better, but your ruthlessly calculated and deceptive pursuit of me, and effort you go about hiding all of it mean you must start behaving better.

I get that the worldwide web and social media remain poorly regulated, but that doesn’t give me or anyone else permission to find ways to exploit that.

And this is certainly not how I wanted to handle my closure, an honest and fully detailed apology from you would have sufficed while I waited for you to repay me. The fact that you are intelligent enough to operate at the level you already do offers plenty indication and hope you could succeed at other opportunities for scratch, it makes me wonder if you’ve ever heard the saying “an honest days work for an honest days pay”.

I know now there are others like me at varying degrees, who I would never ask to take up the task of being so loud at hand towards you.
It is precisely the attempts to downplay what I tried to confront, convince me I am wrong which brings me to this letter. I am writing factual truths here, and will accept any legal ramifications that would result from what I have said in this letter.

This is not the type of writing someone in the throes of “psychosis” or loss of sanity would create. People don’t just run down their hall and throw up upon learning the truth about their relationship with someone. This is real.

We crossed paths in a support group. Intended to be a safe place for communicating about the moments or events people struggle with in their lives. Now I know support groups have become places for catfish or other fraudsters to take advantage of vulnerability. To hear of someone’s most intimate struggles, while at the same time knowingly inflicting more pain onto them… for money.

There is not one decent excuse for that.

And yet, you have used my struggles as a weapon against me, exploited them as a solid “pray for her” she is crazy out of her mind backstory. But I care more about preventing women from being fed through your grinder, than I do what they think of my sanity. At the end of the day I have helped others avoid being tangled up before they could thank me. Even one beautiful, trusting and caring soul left feeling confused and alone with a smaller bank account is too many.

It was upon learning the version you tell, as to why I was reaching out to women, that I finally realised you are still working harder at keeping these secrets hidden than you are at finding an honest way to rebuild.

Kind, nice people treat others as they would like to be treated. They do not make up having the same interests, or fabricate information about themselves in order to get women to think you are like-minded persons for selfish reasons. They don’t pretend they are unmarried while just returning back from their honeymoon.

You had a preface to your game: do not be resentful or spiteful. Never lie to you. Don’t fight with you and don’t hurt you. Many of the rules were broken from day 1 while you had already waged an undeclared war on my human psyche. But now we talk about repentance and forgiveness because it is convenient. My actions to those I have hurt, who deserved better, is what it means to make things right. Not words.

Before I learned there were others, while my reality was based on your reactions, it was hard to believe my recount of events… of things I heard and felt and saw with my very own eyes. So I’m being serious when I say excuse me in advance if not everyone who reads this has encountered you at this level. But I know what happened to me. And I had to investigate and fight so hard to uncover what I knew was true but was told by you I was inaccurate about. Down to scientific facts.

At best, you made a very premeditated effort to deceive and manipulate a woman capable of offering money to you. At best, you made a joke out of my hopes and dreams and personality. Maybe you thought that a Scarlet letter would shame me from reaching this point. I am not ashamed of being human with emotions, and at the time, a profound naivety that led me where I am.
I like to think you have chosen a temporary deplorable career path. But that doesn’t change the reality that I type this as one of your victims, and there’s no more time left in me for silence. What looks to you as harassment and stalking is a victim desperately searching for answers. Trying to take back their human dignity in knowing that this was never about them.

One of the more harsh and impactful damages that result from being victim of an online romance fraud is this perceived loss in the value of humanity. A sense of isolation, fear, shame and humiliation all at once, in moments where it used to seem intuitive to open up to other people. Now there’s an incessant nagging level of self-doubt…that I will miss some sign of a predator in disguise and my naivety or poor judgement will cause me to regret an introduction to a new face. There’s this need to recover without the closure to begin.

Until today.

But then again maybe God has put it on my heart to stop you from this… and to help others do the same, should they find themselves duped by a con artist who thinks they can do and say anything to exploit what they want in life. – J

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M’s Story of a Romance Scam

It’s always a privilege to be able to publish someone else’s experience of Romance Fraud  on my website. Today, Mike has been brave in sharing his experience of a financial romance scam. Sharing these stories is incredibly important to potentially allow another targets or victims to recognise what they or someone they know are going through too.

I retired and moved to Jacksonville, FL during the summer of 2016.  I didn’t know anyone so I joined a dating site. I was arrogant, naive, gullible, and ignorant of online dating scams.

​I joined Arrangement Finders in hope of meeting a beautiful younger woman who wanted an older man.  Scrolling through the posts, I came upon an extremely beautiful woman with a rather conservative photo.  Her post read that she lived in Starke, FL not far from Jax. Her name was “Luisa Rosario” and had moved to Semmes, AL to live with her “sister”, “Joyce Patterson”.

The scammer was using pictures of Mexican-American glamour model Olga Loera.

We struck up an online relationship and she gave me her email address, RosarioLuisa955@gmail.com. She said she wanted to come to Jax to meet me, but needed my help and asked for money.  Stupidly, I started sending her $50 here and there.  She insisted on Gift Cards as she could not cash a check, etc. We texted everyday and she kept saying she was through with young men and wanted me because I was mature, kind and decent.

​Next, she “moved” to Buffalo, NY with her “uncle”, ‘Omar Velez” and asked me to wire him money via Western Union.  Again, foolishly, I did.  He got her a cell phone with a number from St. John’s, Newfoundland in Canada.  She offered some vague explanations about saving money.

​I once talked with some man claiming to be Omar who lied that he was happy for Luisa and me. I fell deeper into this scam.  We even started proclaiming “love” for one another and made plans to live together in Florida.

​“Luisa” moved in with her girlfriend, “Becca”, sent me a phoney address in Buffalo and showed a phoney New York State driver’s license. “Becca” and I spoke a few times and “Luisa” sent me many “her” photos of a drop dead gorgeous Mexican woman, face shots, sexy poses and even nudes. When I asked why one so stunningly beautiful would want to be with a retired, average guy like me; she lied about my being her soul mate, etc.

​For three years she ran this scam, conning me with lies and deception.  I sent her money along the way and we texted or emailed every day.  Supposedly, she was so broke, she couldn’t afford to get to work, had little or no food and tried guilting me into sending more money saying I was cruel to “let her suffer so.”

I even bought a plane ticket to fly to Buffalo on 6/1/20018 to move into “our apt.” that she had secured with my deposit and rent.  But at the last second, she texted me that “her sister Joyce” was dying in Las Vegas.  Then fake “Luisa” later lied that she had been scammed by the landlord and lost the apt. and all my cash. Another lie.

Eventually, I Reverse Image searched a lovely face shot she had just sent, and was revealed it was Olga Loera, a former Mexican Playmate of The Year and an incredibly beautiful glamour model and celebrity in Los Angeles. Olga and I have texted and she is a real, decent, gorgeous model and mother of two,

Luisa Rosario, who doesn’t exist, used Olga’s photos for three years to lie, steal and Catfish me.  I have confronted whomever is behind the long con, and they admitted it.  You can see “Luisa Rosario” on a fake Facebook page, but it is actually a pic of the lovely Olga on a TV Show from seven years ago.

I have learned so much in the past two weeks, so be careful folks!

Sincerely, M.

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A double shock! When random contacts collide.

My website is a branch of hope for some people seeking help with trying to ascertain if the person they have been chatting to and most often have deep feeling for/fallen in love with,” is real or not.

My first contact is generally someone who has become wary of the person they are talking with and sometimes it’s a family member who can see that their relative is blinded by the story given by the ‘Catfish’ romance scammer.

Recently, I was contacted within the space of two weeks by two separate women from the USA.

Case Study 1

‘S’ emailed first. She told me the experience of her mother, who she knew had been defrauded. She had done so well to find out who the harvested photos belonged to through a reverse image search (and made contact with him to make him aware his pictures were being used for scams) and had also got the scammer himself to show his face on a video call. She had contacted me to ask if there was any way of tracking him further, to find out his real name for police and closure for her mother who had been communicating with this man for over two years. Money had exchanged hands but more so, the part of this that is so often ignored, she was devastated at the loss of the person she loved and the reality that he didn’t really exist.

Meyer William, the ‘middle aged white gentleman from London’, contacted S’s mother through Facebook Messenger. You can see more of his pictures here.

This man has had many of his pictures harvested to be used by scammers.

‘Meyer’ claimed to have moved to Malaysia for work with his son. What has become usual for me to hear, are the sob stories that were told to her mother, the emotional trick used to create empathy with the target to build trust, manipulate them, and finally as a tool to exploit them for money. The background behind the character always has a similar theme:

  • widowed parent/military
  • moved through employment for work to remote/foreign country/deployed abroad military
  • no internet/limited service in remote place/security lock down on internet usage
  • someone is ill/they are ill
  • issue with salary/bank/ID lost/cards lost
  • payments to friends/colleagues until problem sorted
  • need help to get back home 

These are obviously very emotive issues that will have a caring person feeling they need to help-especially after a connection has been made and trust in that person built over a period of time. 

‘S’ sent me the bank details her mother had been making payments to:

Bank: BBVA Compass 
City, state: Bishop, Texas  78343
Account : 6758******
Name: Phillips Acosta
Phone: 4322******
Code: CPASUS44 

Case Study 2

‘M’ emailed asking for help to find out if the man she had been speaking to, was who he said he was.

He had given his name as Antonio Michael Bello. Widowed with a daughter. He was claiming to be from Bristol in the UK with family in the USA. He is using a U.K. mobile number/Sim. Work had taken him to Asia. On attempting to return his bank card had been stolen/corrupt. Issues leaving. Fallen ill. Finally released from Asia then hospitalised on arrival back in the U.K (private bills). This scammer even had video footage of this guy to send. The story fits the similar pattern:

  • widowed parent/military
  • moved through employment for work to remote/foreign country/deployed abroad military
  • no internet/limited service in remote place/security lock down on internet usage
  • someone is ill/they are ill
  • issue with salary/bank/ID lost/cards lost
  • payments to friends/colleagues until problem sorted
  • need help to get back home 

Not coming from this country, unaware of other landscapes, style of houses, cars, details of how our medical system works etc… it can be easy to accept what these scammers are saying as true. However, there is nearly always a turning point when it starts to become clear that not all is as it seems.

This man may not be aware that his photos have been used to scam others. They do not show up on reverse image searches.

Scammers are constantly looking for new images to use as more people become aware of ‘reverse image searches’ and some dating websites have software to match images that have been used in scams previously.

Bank: BB&T BANK
Beneficiary Name: Philip Acosta Construction Company.
Beneficiary Address: 2979 County Road 14D Bishop, Texas 78343-5032
Acc#:1340*********
Routine : 053101121
Bank Address: 121 3rd St Ayden, Greenville/NC 28513-7252

You can imagine my surprise when I was logging this case information, to discover that both of these random women were being scammed  by the same gang. Both sets of bank details were to a beneficiary named Philip(s) Acosta and both were using banks in Bishop, Texas.

Once hooked by one of these scammers, they start the process of not only getting money from the target, but using other targets to make their money ‘lending’ seem real. 

‘M’ was asked to send money (via a secure postal source) to another female ‘V’ in America. She was told  ‘V’ would get the money into an account for transferring. He told her that he knew ‘V’ as he had worked in their family construction company for a while. ‘V’ was an older lady and checked out on Facebook by name and location details from the address given.

It’s most likely that ‘V’ was a victim too and ‘M’s’ money was part of the facade of him using money from a friend to ‘repay’ part of the money lent by ‘V’. Later she might be asked to ‘re-loan’ that money when another sob story is set. 

When they start to feel they are losing their grip on the victim, the scammers will get quite distant and nasty. They will  push buttons, make out it’s the victim fault that things don’t seem to be working out or even make a last push with faked documents such as these probate and wills to prove the ‘inheritence’ they are due. ‘M’ had already come to terms with the fact that Antonio wasn’t real at this point but was playing along:

One thing is certain. Both of these women were at vulnerable times in their lives. One widowed and one just getting a divorce. They were both easy targets for  professional scammers who have the ability to emotionally manipulate others, who have a kind and empathetic nature. You think it could never happen to you? Never be so certain. 

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Catfish Conviction for fraud-but why does money hold more weight for conviction than abusing someone for sex?

Catfisher sentenced to five months in custody.

This is an amazing step forward for the current legislation being used for Catfish. I was told by Kent police that  mine couldn’t be convicted for Fraud due to him ‘not asking for a sum of money’, yet he gained personally through gifts, use of my house like a hotel including meals and other things bought through talk of being together in a longterm relationship.

But the biggest thing for me was that he used me for sex on top of all this. He used all of us under the pretence of the lies he told, of long term relationships and marriage.

When does money become more important than using someone’s body?

Do we consider that a person who asks for £10 pretending to be homeless to deceive the owner of their money a worse offender than a person who is premeditated and intentional in their plans to misrepresent themselves and their life, including their marital status, to purposefully use women for sex?

Is this not coward’s rape? Are they not similar in their intentions of your typical rapist, in that they want and need to have control and get satisfaction from gaining sex from multiple women/men?

One to think about…

Here’s the CPS article on the Fraud conviction for this Catfish that got Caught!

31/08/2017

Robert Brown, 29, from Portsmouth was sentenced on August, 31, 2017 to five months in custody today at Portsmouth Magistrates’ Court after pleading guilty to six offences of fraud by false representation after he lured two men into giving him money after creating false accounts on social media, a practice referred to as ‘catfishing’.

Senior Crown Prosecutor, Nick Hoyle for the Crown Prosecution Service in Wessex said: “Robert Brown is a liar who put together a scam where he lured two men into giving him money by creating fake profiles on dating websites.

“He targeted the first victim by posing as a young woman called Fran via a dating website and then chatted to her on Whatsapp. One of his first messages was ‘see I am real’ then he sent photos of her face and in a state of undress. ‘Fran’ aka Robert Brown said that she would send more if the victim would pay her money. He then pretended the money had not gone through. In total the victim sent £600.

“Not only did he defraud the victims of their money but he also gloated to them at the end of his scam. Over a 24 hour period he defrauded the first victim, a 27 year old man, of £600 and at the end of his scam he sent a voice message to the victim saying: ‘Thanks for the money mate …Hahaha Gutted’.

“After luring the second victim, a 29-year-old man, into giving him more than £1000, he laughed at him sending the following message saying ‘Hahaha, I know you sad xxx thanks its (sic) Dean haha’’.

“Both victims said in their victim personal statements that they have been left distressed, depressed by what happened to them, and that they find it difficult to trust anyone. One of them is also struggling to recover from their debts due to the fraud.

“We hope that this prosecution will bring them some comfort that justice has been done.”

Notes to editors

The second victim, a 29-year-old man contacted him via another dating website. Robert Brown used the same modus operandi and this time created a fake profile under the name of ‘Sammieandi’. Robert Brown, pretended to be a woman who had no money to pay her rent. The victim who described himself as being vulnerable and gullible as he was going through a difficult time sent the money. Robert Brown/Sammieandi said that she was going to lose her house and needed £200. Each time the victim sent money, the defendant said that the money had not arrived and asked for the money to be sent again. Sammieandi was also offering sex in exchange of the money. He then created other profiles making up more stories as a result the victim gave him a total of £1860.

Read the article online here

Also..

Woman who posed as man to dupe friend into sex, jailed.