A 63-year-old woman who thought she’d found love lost nearly £200,000 to con artists in a texting scam after they lured her in with a fake dating profile.
Sharon Turner, who lives in London, had been single for 16 years when she turned to the internet to find love.
She was a victim of conmen who pretended to be online ‘dating Romeos’ by telling mature women they were in love with them.
They succeeded in milking their emotional targets out of hundreds of thousands of pounds, a judge heard today.
Described as cunning, cruel and manipulative, the gang logged into online dating sites and, using the false named of Kevin Churchill and Kevin Thompson and began romancing older women by telling them they were wealthy businessmen with international lifestyles.
Five members of the fraud gang were sentenced to ten years in jail in total at Guildford Crown Court today.
Nicholas Adade, 23 (left), from Stoke on Trent, was sentenced to three years and seven months for conspiracy to commit fraud. Eric Ocansey, 35, (right) and from Birmingham, was sentenced to two years imprisonment for conspiracy to commit fraud
Ms Turner, speaking about her experience, said she created a profile on a website for older people looking to date after three people in her office had shared their success stories.
She matched with a Kevin Churchill in October 2016 and ‘Kevin’ dropped hints that he was wealthy and sent flowers as the pair struck up an online relationship.
When they spoke on the phone, Ms Turner said he sounded well-spoken, telling Mirror Online: ‘I couldn’t believe that, after all this time on my own, I’d found someone who wanted me.’
But he cancelled on her when they arranged to meet in November that year, citing a business trip.
Then he complained of £800 vet fees for his dog who was supposedly in the kennels while he was away, saying he needed somebody to pay.
Ms Turner said: ‘He told me he couldn’t transfer the money himself because he banked with Coutts.
‘I’d never heard of Coutts, but when I looked it up, I saw only the creme de la creme bank there.’
Obed Addo, 37, from Roehampton, Surrey, was sentenced to 21 months imprisonment for money laundering
After she sent the cash, Kevin and her continued to chat – but he never met with her to return the money.
Then he asked for even more, telling her it was for legal fees and transport while he was in Haiti.
Plunging into her savings, she continued to fund the mystery man despite his sometimes ‘aggressive’ tone.
In February 2017 he hit her with a bigger request – £2,000. Kevin said the cash was a thank-you gift for a politician.
He asked her to come to Brussels with the money, which she did in the hope that Kevin would be there to repay her.
Two smartly dressed men greeted her when she arrived, but neither had her money. Despite suspecting something was wrong, she kept handing over cash.
She compares it to a gambling addiction as she hoped to get out of the ‘deep hole’ by hoping that Kevin was genuine.
Ms Turner had kept the romance a secret for fear of being viewed as desperate, but her daughter noticed something was amiss in February 2017.
She confronted her mother, who denied everything, only to then turn to family and friends to borrow money as demands increased.
By April, her distraught daughter had turned to her brother for help and they had called the police.
Detective Constable Rebecca Mason of Surrey Police says the ‘sophisticated’ scammers had different time zones on the phone used to call Ms Turner, matching those of the country in which Kevin claimed to be in.
Ms Turner said she was in denial about the amount she’d given her online love interest – but it ended up being about £200,000.
Five members of the fraud gang were sentenced to ten years in jail in total at Guildford Crown Court today
She was left suicidal when she realised how much she’d lost and described herself as ‘mortified’.
A victim impact statement read to the court this afternoon said: ‘I lost my sense of self-worth and my integrity which through the help of victim support and the support of my children, I’ve managed to restore.
‘There were some very black days and it has been an uphill battle. Financially, I lost everything and this will continue throughout the rest of my life.
‘I am systematically repaying those I borrowed from and I’ve had to get a flat share. I just manage to cover my share of the rent and bills and have nothing left over.’
She added: ‘I now use medication. I have been struggling with periods of insomnia, which I am also taking medication for.
‘I have lost all sense of self worth and integrity, and have had periods of feeling suicidal, which I wouldn’t act upon because I would feel awful for my children, who really helped me through this.
‘My anxiety meant that I was terrified of talking to people I know because I felt they would tell me how stupid I was. I will never change my financial position, as only a small amount of people have been paid off. I have to live with this guilt and shame.
‘I now flat share, with one person who is a manic depressive. My mother, who is aged 84 and living in South Africa, was actually hospitalised because of a heart condition caused by the stress of hearing what I had done.
‘I can now manage to just about cover the bills, however my daughter pays for my groceries, otherwise I couldn’t afford to eat.’
Dating fraud is on the rise across the UK – with £50million scammed in 2018.
The gang who defrauded Ms Turner was sentenced today.
Yaw Sarpong, 22, from Hampshire, received 15 months’ imprisonment for conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation.
Nicholas Adade, 23 , from Stoke on Trent, was sentenced to three years and seven months for conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation and money laundering.
He was also given 14 months in jail for money laundering, but the judge said it would run concurrently with the other sentence.
The third ringleader, Eric Ocansey, 35, and from Birmingham, was sentenced to two years imprisonment for conspiracy to commit fraud by false representation, plus 14 months for money laundering – again to run concurrently.
Obed Addo, 37, from Roehampton, Surrey, was sentenced to 21 months imprisonment for money laundering; Daniel Keh, 25 from Enfield, Middlesex who received 18 months imprisonment for converting criminal property and supplying articles to be used in fraud, plus six months for money laundering, to be served concurrently.
The sixth gang member, Makeda Stair, aged 23 years, from Enfield will be sentenced on August 9 at the same court.
The court heard the gang had their victims swooning at the prospect of new love – despite having never met either ‘Kevin.’
But the pledges of affection and companionship were false and it was not long before their dreams of passion came crashing down.
Judge Jonathan Black, sitting at Guildford Crown Court, told the fraudsters: ‘You were clearly motivated by greed and the opportunity to make easy money.’
Earlier he had heard prosecutor Alan Gardner say: ‘This type of fraud is sometimes referred to as ‘romance fraud’. In reality, of course, there is absolutely nothing romantic about it. It involves cynical deception of vulnerable people.’
The court heard that the gang succeeded in persuading their victims they had a genuine romantic interest in them.
Over time the fraudsters got to know their victims and then started asking to borrow money, citing everything from help paying for veterinary bills, to legal fees and travel costs.
‘Believing they were in a loving relationship, two victims handed over a total of £240,000 between 2016 and 2017,’ the prosecutor told Judge Black.
‘In a complex crime in which the money passed through various bank accounts, our investigators were able to trace the perpetrators by meticulously following the fraudulent funds.’
Detective Constable Rebecca Mason of Surrey Police’s Economic Crime Unit said after seeing the gang jailed: ‘I want to pay tribute to the bravery of the two victims in coming forward and working with us to bring this case to court. They have been completely determined to get closure for themselves but also to ensure that no-one else suffers as much as they have at the hands of these heartless people.
‘This type of crime plays mercilessly on personal emotions. These women have gone from the high excitement of being in love to the extreme low of realising they have been victims of crime and their trust and generosity has been completely abused.
‘I cannot emphasise enough, having got to know them throughout this case, that these are both intelligent, sensible women who were taken advantage of by a cunning, cruel, and highly manipulative gang of fraudsters.
‘It is thanks to these women, these criminals are now behind bars and cannot hurt other people but if we can do one more positive thing – it is to spread the word on their behalf about how to stay safe when dating online. They don’t want anyone else to be left as financially and emotionally devastated as they have been.’
Bernadette Lawrie BEM is Surrey Police’s Financial Safeguarding Officer, a specialist role supporting vulnerable victims of fraud. She said:
‘The victims in this case should be praised. We often find that victims of romance fraud can be embarrassed about coming forward and blame themselves.
‘We don’t blame, or judge them for a single second. We know how ruthless and clever these criminals are – and make no mistake, this is a crime – and how easy it is to be taken in by them.
‘Fraudsters take money but they also take away their victims’ confidence and destroy lives. We do all we can to help and support romance fraud victims to move on from this and make sure they don’t become victims of this crime again.’