A Teulada woman was conned out of €57,000 in an online love scam run by a Guardamar man posing as a Policia Nacional officer.
They exchanged an average of 350 messages per day via a dating app and his bogus backstory included a claim that he was part of a wealthy Elche family who ran a construction business.
The fraudster and his girlfriend-both aged 39- have been arrested by the Guardia Civil with the man sent to prison by a Denia court.
The couple had an extensive track record of running similar cons.
The Teulada woman maintained the online romance for 14 months but was always given an excuse as to why she could not meet the new ‘love of her life’- namely work issues or family problems.
The boyfriend’s fake stories featured a dying mother who he then ‘killed off’ during their relationship and a ‘troubled’ teenage son that he found hard to control.
He claimed to be trying to rebuild his family business that an associate had allegedly ruined.
The deception climbed to a higher level when the woman insisted on a meeting and he went to it pretending to be her boyfriend’s brother and pleaded for money on his behalf.
She started to pay out with promises of a quick repayment once a property was sold, but new problems always appeared, as she made bank transfers totalling €57,000 over eight months.
The victim eventually realised that she had been scammed and reported the deception to the Guardia Civil who detained the fraudsters on February 9 in Guardamar.
READ MORE: