By Kelly Strange 17/11/2010
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EXCLUSIVE Thousands of British women go on the internet looking for love, but end up scam victims. In the first of our three-day investigation, Kelly Strange went undercover as a lonely heart..
Good looking, polite, loyal and honest. Single dad Louis Beeckman from Middlesex could be describing the perfect man as he lists his best attributes.
He's 48, widowed with 10-year-old twins, but manages to hold down a successful career as an engineer and find time for his hobbies, which include white-water rafting and swimming. What's not to love about Louis? Well, plenty as it turns out. Within days of posting a profile on one of Britain's biggest dating websites, Louis had contacted me. His handsome profile picture and lengthy - albeit illiterate - message stood out a mile from other responses and soon we were exchanging emails.
Under any other circumstances I might have been thrilled to find myself the subject of attention from such a catch. But this is an investigation into online dating fraud - the romance scam that sees conmen set up fake profiles to extort cash from their love interests.
And Louis isn't writing to me - he's interested in Lonely Lesley, 51, a fictitious profile I've set up using a borrowed photograph of my mum.
Lonely Lesley is a widow, due to retire with two grown-up children who've flown the nest.
By her own admission she's cuddly and unfit, smokes and drinks. So what makes super-fit hunky Louis think he and Lesley would make such an "astonishing" match? He tells me it's not about looks: "I'm interested in what you are like on the inside," he writes. Wow.
I look at the picture he's sent.
Louis is beaming as he sits at his desk in the home he shares with his twins (one boy and one girl) and I even start to feel bad for duping him.
Louis More messages follow. Now Louis tells me he's a Christian and asks me to join him for a chat on msn. He gives me his personal email address and asks for mine.
It's against the rules of the dating site that advise users to talk only in chat rooms where they can be Sex: Location: Distance: Age: Last monitored for safety.
But God-fearing dad Louis seems trustworthy so I give him Lesley's email. He tells me his kids are his world, but there's an empty space in his life and he needs a woman to fill it. Could that woman be me?
His spelling and grammar are not great and I wonder why a businessman like Louis wouldn't at least use spell check. Plus, he says he loves all the pictures of me, when I've only shown him one.
The less cynical might overlook these little matters but, my suspicions aroused, I paste his name into a search engine, half expecting it to be linked to scamming sites. Instead, there's a link to Louis' MySpace profile. The
smile in the profile picture is familiar. Perhaps I've got him all wrong. But, hang on a minute, this Louis is from Jacksonville, Florida and my Louis says he lives in Middlesex.
It's definitely the same man in both pictures and Louis' MySpace profile talks about his twins and love of swimming. What's going on?
I'm lucky enough to have the experts on my side - the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) is responsible for trying to crack the romance fraud and is running checks on my suitors. It's not good news.
"We're 100% certain he is a scammer," an undercover officer tells me shortly after I show him our exchanges. Some of the chat-up lines Louis had used on me sounded familiar and checks revealed they were from a template scammers use to send messages en masse.
I paste a few of his romantic sentences into a search engine and hundreds of profiles and letters appear with the same content but different names and pictures.
"The person you were writing to is most likely talking to hundreds of men and women in the UK at the moment using different names and images," the officer explains. "And far from living in Middlesex, he is most likely part of a syndicate based in West Africa."
The profile pictures of an innocent person were probably stolen from a networking site. Louis may not even be able to speak English.
"That's why they use a template," explains the Soca officer. And what about the telephone number he gave me? "These scam syndicates usually have an actor with an authentic accent who is paid to take care of calls. They're so good you'd never know you'd been diverted to a mobile in Africa."
Scammers go to extraordinary lengths to groom victims.
But then romance fraud is highly lucrative with vulnerable people sending anything from several hundred pounds to £245,000.
More victims are falling for the cruel con that not only steals their cash but breaks their heart, too. The problem is many people are too ashamed to come forward. They are embarrassed they fell for it. But they shouldn't be. It's a sophisticated, multi-million pound industry and anyone can be duped.
My profile had been set up to match one of Soca's typical victims.
"The scammers seem to target older women who they think may be more financially solvent," the investigator tells me.
"They are also less likely to be familiar with how technology can be used to con people. And, of course, the fact they are on a dating site indicates they are lonely, so have a weak spot."
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