(BASED ON THE DOCUSERIES ‘HEY BEAUTIFUL: ANATOMY OF A ROMANCE SCAM’ )1
DISCLAIMER: If you haven’t watched the docuseries and you are interested in watching it, you may be advised to watch the series first and then return here. There are many spoilers here. If you have already watched the series or are only interested in the contents of this article, please proceed and enjoy.
Four women from four different walks of life and parts of the world, but all with three things in common. Loneliness, a craving for real love, and a beautiful gay white man. Roxy from Connecticut, U.S.A., was not your typical single older woman with lots of money. She was married and loved to host family get-togethers in her house, where she lived with her high school sweetheart. She loved being a wife and mother and spending time with her grandkids. Roxy is a social butterfly, and as she and her husband got older, she began to feel loneliness. She would pass the time in the evenings after dinner playing the game ‘Words with Friends’ on her phone. This is how she met Scott, who became an online friend. The innocent friendship brought excitement into her life, and before long, the friendship had blossomed into an online romance.
Annette is a middle-aged waitress who lives in Ontario, Canada. She loves to take care of people, and unlike most in the service industry, she enjoys her career as a waitress. Annette was married to a controlling man and eventually left him, causing a rift between herself and her children. Amid the separation, her beloved dog died, and she found herself lonely and having lost everything that she loved. Unlike Roxy, who mistakenly met Scott while playing a game, Annette went online looking for someone to fill that gap. On the Facebook dating site, she met Mark de Silva, a handsome white man with an oil rig business. Mark had everything that Annette was looking for. He was physically attractive, constantly posting pictures in the gym, owned a business, and had lost his wife to cancer. He loved to travel and, like Annette, had a family that he missed. It was the perfect relationship at the perfect time.
In Frankfurt, Germany, Gaby meets Michael Silva, a Gemstone wholesaler on LinkedIn. She felt like she had won the lottery after receiving messages from this handsome businessman asking for a follow. Michael’s wife had died of cancer, he travelled a lot, and worked out at the gym. All these were things that Gaby liked and did as well. Michael asked Gaby if they could switch to communicating on WhatsApp. She agreed, and there on WhatsApp, he began to love-bomb her. At the time, she did not see it as love-bombing. Gaby enjoyed the compliments but was leery when he shortly confessed his love for her. She felt that it was too soon for her to confess love, especially since she was still married. She found Michael irresistible, though, and began to fall in love with him. Unlike Roxy and Annette, Gaby is wealthy, and Michael expresses the desire to see her in person. They plan to meet at a hotel in Berlin. With Gaby waiting for him in Berlin, Michael never shows up. He suddenly needs to travel to Vietnam to acquire some gems.
Similarly, Mark de Silva offers to come up to Ontario to visit Annette. He never comes to visit her because he suddenly has a contract in Norway. This is where the problems begin. Suddenly, Mark has emergency issues on his oil rig, and he needs $10,000. Meanwhile, Michael is stuck in Vietnam because of customs issues. He needs money to pay customs and does not have access to his funds because his bank is “acting crazy”. He needs $5,000. Let’s not forget about Scott Hall, Roxy’s online lover. He, too, is suddenly experiencing bad luck. He had equipment failure on an oil rig and needed $1,000 to get the equipment fixed so that he could get home to his daughter, whom he misses very much.
The fourth woman, Kathy, was from Alabama, U.S.A. In the docuseries, her sister Sandy and her niece Mandy speak on her behalf because, sadly, Kathy is no longer alive. According to her family, Kathy died of “a broken heart”. Kathy met John Durian on Instagram, and similar to the other women’s stories, John worked at an oil rig, quickly fell in love with Kathy, and after a while seemed to have plenty of bad luck. John claimed that he lived in the U.K. and wanted to come to Alabama to be with Kathy, but because he owed large amounts of taxes, he could not leave the U.K. Inevitably, Kathy sent John $20,000. Soon, she was sending more money in spite of her family’s warnings. Kathy was in love. She completely trusted this man she had never met. In all four cases, the women sent money to their online lovers more than once. In Roxy’s case, the man returned her money with interest, but she later learned from her bank that the check was fake. Kathy wasn’t wealthy, but she had a comfortable retirement nest. When she met John, she was healthy, had a healthy amount of weight on her body, and was close to her family members. Over time, Kathy’s finances were depleted, her body looked emaciated, and John had managed to isolate her from her family. Kathy’s house burned down, and nobody knows why this happened. In the end, she was in a furnitureless apartment with barely anything to eat. John pretended to provide for Kathy by offering her a place in his side business. She was to receive money and convert it to Bitcoin for John. Kathy’s family suspected that she was a money laundering mule for John, but their pleas fell on Kathy’s deaf ears. Her health eventually deteriorated to an irreversible state, and when she died, the cause of her death was ruled as malnutrition. Kathy had given everything to this mysterious man that she had fallen in love with, but had never met. John had dangled the proverbial carrot over Kathy’s head until he had completely drained her.
The Man Behind the Profile Picture
The plot thickens when all four women, with Kathy’s sister Sandy representing her, decide to investigate who these men are. The pictures their men send them seem artificial, which prompts each of them to conduct reverse searches on the photos on Google. The searches all lead to one man’s Instagram account. All four women’s internet lovers have the same face. Could it be the same man romancing different women across continents? Brian Haugen is a gay man who owns a makeup artist business in California. Unfortunately, Brian had no idea that his images were being used by not just one romance scammer, but several. Brian is a victim, too. When the women find him, they are angry and want answers, but Brian is confused and begins to look for answers too. The women eventually meet and realize that although it seems that they have all been scammed by the same man, the man in the images is not even the man they thought they were communicating with.
Brian finds out that while he was busy trying to build a brand, his brand was being used in nefarious ways. Brian embarks on a mission to clear his face, but the mission proves futile. Although there are laws within each country to protect citizens from scammers, the culprits are difficult to catch and prosecute across international lines. A collaboration with the FBI and a cyber engineer leads them to Nigeria. Each of the four women had been scammed by a different Nigerian man, but all four men were suspected to be members of an infamous scammer group in Nigeria known as the Yahoo Boys. According to cybersecurity sources, the Yahoo Boys are a wealthy syndicate with a pyramid structure where the wealthy experienced scammers are at the top, the novices in the middle, and the apprentices at the bottom.
My Story
I cannot write an article about romance scammers without including my own experience. Women should beware that anyone can be a victim of a scam. All it takes is for someone to say the right words at the right time to you. Scammers play the long game, and the internet, as you will find in my case, is not the only place where one could meet a romance scammer.
It was a beautiful day in breathtaking Dubai, and as my friend and I browsed one of the beautiful malls there, we came across a handsome Arab man who was selling perfumes. As I bought some perfume for my mother, we easily struck up a conversation. We talked about where we both were originally from. He was an Egyptian living in Dubai. I was newly single, and I found him to be quite enchanting. An enchanting man in an enchanting land. Before I walked away, he asked to connect on Facebook, and I thought, “Why not?”. I figured that at most we would just communicate online since I did not live in Dubai. Nothing would ever materialize from it. I went back to my home country, and we communicated every day. It wasn’t long before he was confessing his love and showering me with compliments. I slowly began to imagine myself living in Dubai with him. After all, I had found Dubai a pleasant place. He waited until he felt that I was falling for him. One day, during the COVID-19 epidemic, the tragic story began. He told me that because of COVID, he and his roommates had not been able to work, and were now in danger of losing their apartment. I felt sorry for him and couldn’t help but want to help. Unfortunately, at the time, but fortunately in retrospect, he was asking for an amount of money that I did not possess. He needed $4,000 to save himself and his roommates. When I told him that I did not have the money and that I too was struggling because of Covid, he became impatient and irate.
Suddenly, the sweet and caring man who was always complimenting me became rude, irritable, and critical, while blaming his behavior on stress. When he realized that I did not have the money and that I was not going to be able to help him, he disappeared. His Facebook account was still there, but he was unresponsive and mostly offline. I eventually decided to cut my losses and move on. Every time I thought about that man, I would have this creeping suspicion that he had been lying to me to get some money out of me. It wasn’t until a couple of years later that I began to hear about scammers who took advantage of women. I was relieved that I had not had the money to send to him.
How to Spot a Romance Scammer
The first thing to keep in mind about romance scammers is that they do not only scam online, but many of them use social media because it is the easiest way to hide their real selves and take up any form of identity that they want. Most social media sites do not verify photographs. Therefore, anyone can use any photo as a profile picture. We assume that people are being honest when they create social media profiles, and that people are telling the truth when they text us. We assume that people are being honest when they are posting videos and photos of their daily activities. The truth is that the internet is a cesspool of petty criminals and savory characters who take advantage of the boundaryless nature of the global net. Being on the internet is like being out at Sea in International waters. No specific laws apply because that domain does not belong to any specific country. Investigating a scam that leads to a third-world country can make it difficult to pinpoint culprits, and even when found, there are extradition laws and bureaucratic tape. This can make it time-consuming and almost impossible to reach a verdict and eradicate these syndicates.
The scammers involved in scamming the four women have, as of 2025, never been caught, although they may have been identified. The FBI and cybersecurity engineers are working hard to find solutions for this new wave of cybercrime. In the meantime, it is up to us individually to prevent being scammed. Knowledge is power, and being aware of what lurks out there could prevent more people from being scammed out of their life savings. If you have met someone online or during your travels, here are a few red flags to watch out for:
- Love-bombing – A scammer is normally in a hurry to win his victim’s affection so that he can expedite getting funds from them. He will therefore say anything to get the victim to feel good and to respond emotionally. Highly emotional people seldom make sober decisions, and getting someone to fall in love makes it easier to get favors from them. The scammer will therefore shower the victim with compliments while testing to see which words elicit more positive emotion from the victim.
- Over-communicating – The scammer will text a lot. The victim will feel good about it because she is getting the attention that she always wanted. It means that he is thinking of her. He might tell her that he misses her all the time. The scammer wants to fill up all of the victim’s time to ensure that the victim does not have time to sober up. The victim may feel like they are in a whirlwind romance, always walking on cloud nine.
- Falling in love rapidly – The scammer may appear to fall in love with the victim within a few weeks or even days of meeting. The victim may sense that this is happening too fast, but then ignores this red flag because they have waited so long to find real love, and now here it is. Someone loves them, and they will not do anything to ruin it.
- The individual experiences a significant amount of bad luck – Suddenly, your new love interest has problems, and they are huge emergencies, and they seem to be getting bigger and bigger. If the victim manages to bail the scammer out of a financial problem, the scammer will shower the victim with love and appreciation, but then soon another crisis will emerge.
- Everything is an emergency – Every time the scammer shares a problem with the victim, there is always this sense of urgency. There are deadlines. Rent needs to be paid by Friday, or they will be evicted. The scammer is stuck at an airport and cannot get home. There is a court date, and funds must be available immediately. The scammer is in the hospital, and they need money for an emergency surgery. The list is endless. The scammer knows that the victim has fallen in love and will do anything to save their lover.
- Guilt-tripping – If the victim expresses an inability to help the scammer with money, the scammer will pretend to be a victim and will say things to make the victim feel bad for not helping. The scammer will dramatize the looming doom that is coming if they cannot get the funds from the victim. The scammer will use language to imply that the victim does not love them. The scammer will even promise more love or an upgrade in their relationship if the victim helps them. This upgrade could be finally meeting in person or even getting married. This gives the victim incentive, and they are more willing to help with the hope that they can finally be together.
- Ghosting – If the victim does not communicate, the scammer will ghost the victim, disappearing forever or sometimes for a while to teach the victim a lesson. Ghosting the victim for a while creates a crisis within the victim. The scammer had been love-bombing the victim and over-communicating; therefore, the silence can be devastating for the victim, leading the victim to act quickly to get their lover to come back. A victim who was beginning to notice red flags and taking time to think may revert to an irrational fear of losing the relationship, and then spring into action by sending the money.
Important things to remember when dating
To avoid being the victim of a romance scam, knowing what a scammer or a scam looks like is not enough. Being able to recognize a healthy relationship as well as being in a healthy state of mind are also important.
- Someone you are dating online or otherwise should never ask you for money. Money complicates relationships, and wise people are aware of this. Most men want to impress their partner and will struggle before they ask for money. A long-distance partner asking for money is a major red flag.
- Never make decisions while lonely. Like hunger, loneliness interferes with our ability to make sober decisions. Loneliness can lead to ignoring red flags. Instead of looking for someone to fill that loneliness, a better move might be to seek professional help and to heal the psychic wounds first before starting a new relationship.
- Someone who truly loves you will not guilt-trip or blow hot and cold. If someone’s love for you depends on what you do for them, and when you cannot do what they want, they guilt-trip you or treat you badly, they are manipulating you, and this is not a healthy relationship.
Conclusion
Anyone can be a victim of a scam, so there is no need to feel ashamed. The key is to grow and to spread awareness. If you have never been a victim, being aware and vigilant can help prevent you and others from becoming victims. Scammers have no remorse and go after widows, seemingly wealthy women, and lonely people. Most of the scammers live in third-world countries and are struggling to make ends meet. The consensus in these countries is that Americans and Europeans have unlimited money and resources. The scammer dehumanizes the victim, viewing them as simply a provision. In the scammer’s mind, he is feeding his family, and scamming is a job like any other, although much easier to earn large sums of money in a short period. This is no excuse, and scamming is a crime against humanity. With time, I hope technology advances to easily track scam activity, allowing us to stop these criminals in their tracks.
