Nothing says love like a £1.6 million online dating scam

David bisson
David Bisson
@

Con men

Two men tricked a woman into sending separate payments of cash totalling £1.6 million as part of an online dating site scam.

The Register reports that Ife Ojo, 31, and Olusegun Agbaje, 43, have pleaded guilty to scamming a British woman out of £1.6 million (2.4 million USD) over the course of 10 months.

The scam started last February when the woman, who is in her 40s and lives in Hillingdon, met a man by the name of Christian Anderson on a dating site.

Sign up to our free newsletter.
Security news, advice, and tips.

According to BBC News, Anderson presented himself as an oil engineer with a sob story. He was divorced, he claimed, and he had a daughter. Also, he said his father and sister had both died of cancer.

A few weeks after connecting, the fraudster told the woman that he loved her and wanted to be with her but that he was struggling to complete a project in Benin, Africa. The lying lover therefore asked that she send some money as a loan for some specialist equipment he could use:

“I know our relationship is still young, but I am really trying to hang on here, and after the contract, we have all the time in the universe together.”

Poetry bookThe woman ultimately gave Anderson a £30,000 loan. But things did not stop there. She also paid her supposed suitor a series of other payments, including a £25,000 police fine and several thousands of pounds to free up Anderson’s mother’s inheritance money.

Later on, the victim covered a non-existent £170,000 “anti-terrorist certificate” so that the inheritance money, for which she had a met the scammer’s “lawyer” in Amsterdam, could be deposited in the bank. She was even looking for a house into which she and Anderson could move.

Fortunately, the woman eventually became suspicious and contacted London’s Metropolitan Police, who arrested Ojo and Agbaje.

At the scammers’ house, the authorities found a copy of Neil Strauss’s book “The Game: Penetrating the Society of Pick Up Artists”, which the duo had been using as a manual to pick up women.

The book, as noted by The Telegraph, includes chapters such as “Select a Target” and “Blast Last Minute Resistance”.

The conmen had a copy of "The Game"

Ojo and Agbaje have been charged for their crimes. But they are not the only fraudsters stalking online dating sites, and the woman from Hillingdon is certainly not the only victim of this kind of scam.

“Within the last year, FALCON has investigated the loss of £4 million in relation to 100 victims who have been ruthlessly manipulated by men and women pretending they love them,” said Detective Chief Inspector Gary Miles of FALCON, the Metropolitan Police’s specialist cyber crime and fraud detection unit, in a statement. “The suspects showered them with compliments and confided their seemingly innermost secrets to them. In many cases, the suspects were talking to their victims online or over the phone for hours every day.”

Detective Miles goes on to note that victims of similar scams feel embarrassed and shamed that they have been tricked, a feeling which might lead them to not confide in anyone. But the reality is that some scammers are just that good at exploiting people, emotionally and financially.

Anyone who feels that they have been a victim of an online dating scam should report it to the authorities. Also, as with any online activity, users of online dating sites should be careful when connecting with strangers for romantic purposes. A sob story and a friendly photo are just meant to trick you.

Follow these tips here and keep your money, question everything you’re told, and don’t keep anything a secret.

It could save you £1.6 million in the process.


David Bisson is an infosec news junkie and security journalist. He works as Contributing Editor for Graham Cluley Security News and Associate Editor for Tripwire's "The State of Security" blog.

2 comments on “Nothing says love like a £1.6 million online dating scam”

  1. graphicequaliser

    You never really "meet" anyone on a dating site. You only ever "meet" people in REAL life. When I plough through my emails in the morning, anything purporting to want to reward me with money, free this-or-that, or some unknown woman begging for attention, it gets immediately binned.

  2. Tonsor

    Anderson should be let go and be allowed to sue the lady for another 100K. If, after 35 years, you are still not understand what is going on than you really do not deserve any sympathy. Nigerians and other Africans are doing this since the invention of the telefax.

What do you think? Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.