"Romance" Scams Around the World

Although online "romance scams" -- fraud schemes that seek to exploit the trust of Internet users hoping for love and companionship -- have been prevalent for more than a decade, operators of the schemes are reaching into more and more corners of the globe.  Even as warnings about such schemes proliferate on government and law enforcement websites in Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and on various private-sector sites, romance scammers continue to ply their trade with apparently growing success.

In the United Kingdom, a study -- by Professor Monica Whitty of the University of Leicester and Dr. Tom Buchanan of the University of Westminster, with government funding and support from the Serious Organised Crime Agency -- found that as many as 200,000 residents of Britain may have become romance-scam victims.  The researchers' study of the problem is continuing.)  In the United States, according to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), romance scams in 2011 were the fourth-most frequently reported online scam, with reported losses of $50.4 million -- an average of $138,000 per day (though such data do not reflect the vast numbers of people who do not report being defrauded in such schemes).  One recent media report even identified romance-scam victims in Brunei.

Moreover, romance-scam operations can be found in numerous countries around the world.  The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, after analyzing romance-fraud complaints in just a three-month period from December 2010 to February 2011, found "payout locations" (i.e., locations where someone connected with the scheme was able to obtain payouts of funds that the victims had sent through money-transfer services) "in 11 different countries including, Canada, Philippines, United Kingdom, Nigerian, Ghana, Cote D’Ivoire, Russia, Ukraine, Malaysia, Italy and Iraq."

Just last month, Colorado authorities indicted a mother and daughter living in the state for their roles in a Nigerian-based romance scheme that allegedly took in more than $1 million from 374 victims who thought they were being contacted by U.S. armed forces members.  The ABC News report on the indictment stated that the 374 victims were located in the United States and 40 other countries, and that the defendants, apparently operating as "money mules" for the Nigerian operation, wired funds  "addressed to 112 different names in Nigeria, . . . [and] to individuals in Ecuador, Great Britain, India, United Arab Emirates and the U.S."