$6M Internet Romance Scam Targets Women Worldwide

A Japanese woman was left with a huge amount of credit, lots of regrets, angry and depressed after being a victim of an internet romance scam that targets women worldwide.

On Thursday, 17 people were arrested out of the 80 people charged by the U.S. prosecutor for conspiring in a scam that targeted women across the globe. Majority of the charged and arrested people behind what Nick Hanna, a U.S. Attorney calls as one of the largest cases of its kind were Nigerians.

The internet romance scam acquired almost $6 million across the globe. The said figures were majorly from vulnerable elderly women as well as businesses. As of the moment, the federal investigators are hunting the other suspects charged as far as Nigeria and other nations.

A Japanese woman victim of the internet romance scam lost almost $200,000 in 10 months. She claimed that she made a total of 35 to 40 payments deposited to her online significant other whom she is not even sure of existence.

Their tragic scam story started with an international site for digital pen pals. A simple chat between FK, a Japanese woman and a man who calls himself Terry Garcia, a Syria stationed US army captain paved the way for their internet romance.

As days went on Terry Garcia started requesting FK who began trusting him for money to be deposited to him. Garcia even used dummy persons to claim to be a Red Cross diplomat talking to her about a shipment of diamonds that needed her help in funding which FK acquired from borrowing.

Garcia told FK that he found a bag of diamonds and that FK will be his hope of smuggling all those as he was injured and needed all the help he could get. As FK went on sending money upon Garcia’s request, reasons kept coming in on why the package was held in custom. The payments were made via accounts in Turkey, the U.K., and the U.S.

FBI Los Angeles warned people to be vigilant on the spread of this internet romance scam. In 2018 alone, $143 million were gone as 21,000 unsuspecting victims sent their hard-earned money to fraudsters.