A divorcée in her sixties has revealed how she was duped by
an online con artist who targeted her through a reputable
dating website.
The woman, revealed only as Sheila, 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.
She had believed Glen was who he claimed to be when he
first contacted her online and sent her his picture.
She said: 'As soon as I opened the email and saw his photo it
was love at first sight, we spent time chatting with emails
going backwards and forwards getting to know each other.
He was very charming and romantic.'
Glen told Sheila he was a captain in the Canadian Navy and
was a widow currently based in Afghanistan as a medical
doctor working in a field hospital.
'So there was a genuine reason why we couldn't meet,' said
Sheila, who had been looking for love again following the
end of her marriage and had hoped to find it using dating
websites.
Via email, her romance with Glen quickly blossomed and
she was delighted when he popped the question - only a
month after he first contacted her.
She recalled: He proposed on Valentine's Day, it was so
romantic. I thought "yes!".'
She admits she knows it was rash but 'you get to my age and
time isn't on our side anymore, you can't be pussy-footing
around like young teenagers so I said yes.'
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.
Sheila said: 'We were planning to walk off into the sunset
hand-in-hand and live happily ever after.'
But Glen told Sheila that in order for his business to be a
success, he needed her help financially. He said a payment
had to be made right away in order for them to get the
goods he needed from a supplier - and that he couldn't
make the transaction from Afghanistan.
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.
She recalled: '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.'
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.
Sheila said :'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 operating dating scams like that experienced
by Sheila.
The remorseful scammer called Kingsley admitted that
divorcees were deliberately targeted because they are often
emotionally vulnerable and easy to manipulate.
He said: '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.
'We are looking for someone who is divorced as there is
always an emotional attachment, they feel some sort of
emptiness.'
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.
'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,' said the former
Nigerian dating scammer
He said: '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.'

www.thisdaylive.com/articles/divorcee-is-scammed-out-of-4-000-by-nigerian-fianc-who-proposed-one-month-after-they-met-online/224849/