Before you know it. Here’s how romance scammers prey on people and defraud them.
Maria Exposto, a Sydney granny who fell prey to a romance scam and became a drug mule couldn’t have been aware what was ahead of her when she departed Australia to sign documents for her fiancé in order for him to retire form service and marry her.
At age 50, Exposto had fallen prey to a widowed special force soldier who was doing his part for his country. They never met which was easily understood. He was doing his service to country in Afghanistan. She gave her description as being blindly in love with a man who decided to woo her online showering her with long deep conversations and love songs.
Exposto recently was acquitted after facing a death penalty in Malaysia for charges of attempting to smuggle a kilogram of cocaine five years ago. Since she was captured, she maintained she became a victim of a romance scam.
Sadly, her story is not unique. Just like Exposto, victims of romance scams usually are between the ages of 45 to 54 years old, respond to elaborate stories, and are impulsive and well educated.
Romance scammers usually prey on unsuspecting people to build a relationship and defraud their prey. They are well organized, clever and have different techniques which make them to be highly successful.
The huge emotional ties which are formed can make their victims easy to manipulate and make them vulnerable to being aware and unsuspectingly engaged in criminal activity. More than 10 million Australians are in exposure to at least a personal fraud scam yearly.
Scammers are in for the long term
In Exposto’s situation, the “relationship” had been in motion for more than a year. This is unsurprising as romance scammers are in for the long term and see the procedure as a long investment to build trust and intimacy. They often use teams of people to “woo” and “hook” the victim.
Scammers mostly fake their profiles with stolen photographs, often parading as army officers and mostly create a tragic story or story of desperate circumstances. Armed forces identities are common place as it easily tells their inability to meet face to face.
It’s this strategy of the scammer to engage in a long sustained relationship that creates the illusion that the relationship is real and will lead to something more long lasting.
Eventually, the scammer has trapped someone who has invested heavily in this fake relationship and has built a strong bond and has been led to believe they understand their partner. After the bond has been established, the scammers frequently request some money to help pay some fiction medical bills, pay for tickets or help partners out of difficult situations.
