An undercover romance fraudster pretending to be a woman admits he is ‘falling in love’ with the ‘kind-hearted’ American man he conned out of over $10,000 in a new documentary.
The second season of National Geographic’s hugely popular Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller will see the award-winning journalist unveil the inner workings of romance scams.
The unidentified Ghanaian man, who disguises his identity with a balaclava and gold mask, is accompanied by a female companion who lends her voice during phone calls to the victim in Virginia.
Despite their ruse, the man speaks candidly with the journalist – admitting he believes his victim has a ‘kind heart’.
After scamming the US man out of thousands by claiming he needed cash for rent and school fees, the scammer says he ‘feels’ for the man, named Michael, in a platonic sense, and thinks he’s ‘too good to him’.
The new series, which airs Monday, will no doubt appeal to fans of Netflix’s hit documentary Tinder Swindler, following a group of women who were the victims of dating app conman Shimon Hayut.
An undercover romance fraudster (pictured right)pretending to be a woman admits he is ‘falling in love’ with the American man he conned out of over $10,000 in National Geographic’s hugely popular Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller
The first episode which premieres Monday will see the award-winning journalist unveil the inner workings of romance scams. Pictured, a masked scammer flaunting his cash in the series
In a clip shared from the programme, the 45-year-old journalist is seen meeting up with two unidentified scammers in an unknown location in Ghana.
The male fraudster admits: ‘I’m pretending to be a woman, using the profile of a female.’
‘This man, Michael, has no idea you are actually a man in Ghana?’, asks Mariana.
The conman continues: ‘Yes. I started falling in love with him. Not for intercourse or whatever it is, but I felt for him. Michael is kind-hearted, I think Michael has been too good for me.’
Each episode of the forthcoming series follows Mariana as she works her way inside a different black market or global trafficking network and meets key players inside the murky industries
Pictured, a group of masked scammers using laptops to con unsuspecting victims out of cash in the new series
Pictured, an unidentified woman and masked man filming a music video in a new documentary about romance scams
The scammer then reveals Michael has sent more than $10,000 to him, purportedly for education and rent, saying: ‘Michael knows I’m at school here in Ghana’.
The series then sees Michael calling the scammer from his hometown in Virginia, with the female companion on hand, presumably ready to speak to him.
Each episode of the forthcoming series follows Mariana as she works her way inside a different black market or global trafficking network and meets key players inside the murky industries.
In the first episode, she will be seen chatting with other US victims, one of whom says she was ‘like a fish, that hook was so far down in my belly’ admitting she gave her scammer $2.8million.
Others dubbed their fraudsters ‘evil b****ds’, while admitting they sold jewellery and investments in order to send money over to their scammer.
‘Filming a whole season of Trafficked during a global pandemic was extremely challenging, but there’s been an explosion of black markets over the past year, and I think we all quickly realised that this series has become more relevant than ever’, said van Zeller of the series.
Pictured, Mariana van Zeller and an unidentified woman holding cash in the new documentary investigating the murky world of romance scams
Pictured, a Ghanaian woman flaunting cash with a masked man in the forthcoming series investigating romance scams
Israeli conman Simon Leviev, 31, whose real name is Shimon Hayut, is suspected of conning women out of £7.4million by operating a kind of Ponzi scheme
‘With this second season, we have managed to dive even deeper and gain even more access into underworld networks around the world.’
The series comes in the aftermath of the massively successful Netflix documentary The Tinder Swindler, directed by Felicity Morris.
It follows Cecilie Fjellhøy, Ayleen Koeleman, and Pernilla Sjoholm, were fooled into thinking Hayut, 30, from Israel, was the son of a billionaire diamond merchant after meeting him on a dating app.
The convicted conman would use the money he acquired from other victims to impress single women with an expensive lifestyle and lavish gifts.
Shimon, who has been known to use pseudonyms, scammed Cecilie, Ayleen and Pernilla by claiming that he needed to borrow money because using his own funds could lead him to be traced by his enemies.
It is unclear how many other people fell for the scam but it is estimated that he conned his victims out of £7.4 million.
