A typical case of online romance fraud can look like this: The victim is courted by a fake identity he meets online.
The identity is often created with the help of scripts that the fraudsters have worked out.
The victim falls in love and the contact intensifies, so that when the fake identity starts asking for money, it is difficult for the victim to say no.
The victims often lose hundreds of thousands of kronor before they withdraw.
Clearance percentage zero
In the 97 reports that came in during January 2020, each victim lost an average of SEK 370,000, according to statistics from the police.
In 2019, a total of 993 crimes about romance fraud were reported in Sweden.
The crimes are almost never solved.
- When it comes to the online romance scams committed by foreign fraudsters, the clearance rate is almost zero, says Jan Olsson, crime commissioner at the national IT crime center.
“Fraud boys”
In the new documentary "Cheated on love and millions", so-called fraud boys tell how they cheat people via their laptops in the home office in Ghana.
- My name is Johnny and I am in the US military.
Sometimes in Palestine, sometimes in Iraq, it's my main profession online, says one of the fraudsters.
Many fraudsters pass on their online contacts to huge criminal networks that continue to make money on them, says journalist Sean Rubinsztein-Dunlop in the documentary.
- Fraudsters often work in groups.
They exchange photos, online identities and control bank accounts worldwide.
They exchange and even sacrifice with each other, he says.
Call the victims clients
In the meeting with the fraudsters, Sean Rubinsztein-Dunlop noticed that they do not see the people they are cheating as victims of crime, but call them "clients":
Sacrifice does not sound good.
A client is a business partner.
Are you committing a crime?
-No I do not see it as a crime, because it is online.
Want to know more about online romance scams? Watch the entire documentary series "Cheated on love and millions" on SVT Play.