online scam police

Police swoop on dating site internet scammers who stole R100 million

Police working together with US authorities have swooped on eight foreigners who were running internet scams from South Africa.

online scam police

Police have arrested eight foreign nationals for allegedly perpetrating internet scams, social media dating scams, money laundering and international wide scale financial fraud from their location in Cape Town.

Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) spokesperson, Colonel Katlego Mogale said the police had arrested the suspects, aged between 33 and 52, in a joint operation that was initiated based on the mutual legal assistance of central authorities in the United states of America.

The indictment indicates that the suspects were defrauding victims in an online/ social media scam/dating scams/ internet fraud and money laundering from their location in Cape Town.

“The eight suspects were arrested during a multi-diciplinary operational teams of Hawks Serious Commercial Crime Investigation Unit, Crime Intelligence(CI), K9, National Intervention Unit , Special Task Force (STF) and Criminal Record Center, Metro police Cape Town in the early morning hours of today and will be charged with a variety of financial crimes, including conspiracy to commit wire/mail fraud/mail and money laundering,” Mogale said.

Mogale said that the suspects were alleged to have ties to a transnational organised crime syndicate originating abroad. 

“It is alleged that these suspects allegedly preyed on victims, many of whom are vulnerable widows or divorcees and believed that they were in a genuine romantic relationship but were scammed out of their hard earned money,” Mogale said.

“The suspects used social media websites, online dating websites to find and connect with their victims.  Other modus operandi used by the suspects includes business email compromise, where email accounts are diverted in order to change banking details.,” Mogale added,

The suspects had assumed fake names and trolled dating sites. 

“Once they had ingratiated themselves with their victims, they allegedly concocted sob-stories about why they needed money, such as to pay taxes to release an inheritance, essential overseas travel, crippling debt and then they siphoned money in excess of R100 million from their victims’ accounts.

“The fraudsters intimidated and berated their victims, ruined their lives and then disappeared. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of USA estimates that more than 100 victims lost more than R100 in romance scams from 2011 till to date,” Mogale said.