The scammer pretended to be an astronaut who was under attack and in desperate need of oxygen which led his romance fraud victim to send thousands of pounds in a bid to help him
A scammer claiming to be an astronaut duped his victim out of thousands after telling her he was “under attack on a spaceship.”
The scammer found the Japanese woman on social media back in July in what police in the country described as a romance scam. The woman, who lives on the northern island of Hokkaido, was told by the scammer that he was an astronaut as they developed a relationship online.
In a brazen move, the fraudster told the victim he was “in space on a spaceship right now” and that he was “under attack” and in need of oxygen. Police said the woman, who lives alone, had been persuaded to transfer ¥1million (£5,000).
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Officers said they believe the fraudster had manipulated the woman as part of a romance scam, reports AFP. They went on to warn people they needed to be suspicious of someone asking for money, especially if they met online.
Japan is the world’s second-oldest country behind the microstate of Monaco, according to the World Bank. According to research from CIFAS, in the year leading up to November 2024, more than £11.4billion was lost to scams in the UK alone.
A guest on This Morning raised awareness of online scams after her late husband fell victim to a fake investment scheme. Gill Casey’s husband Tim came across an advert on Facebook where he was drawn in by a promise of making quick money through a Bitcoin website.
Falsely claiming to be endorsed by financial journalist Martin Lewis, who does not do adverts, the investment scheme appeared to Tim to be legitimate and an easy way to generate some extra income. Tim signed up and invested some of his and his wife’s savings with things appearing to snowball as his apparent earnings increased.
He was regularly in contact with the man, who appeared to be helping him with his investment, Gill revealed. “This guy would be on the phone three times per week. Bearing in mind that by this time, Tim was in his early eighties, and he had the time. He was at home, he had the time,” Gill explained. He would phone three times per week, and he would talk for two hours, and it was just brainwashing.”
Gill started to get suspicious, but she trusted Tim, who had been in charge of the couple’s finaces from the beginning of their marriage. She admitted: “I was getting more and more cynical about it, but he would just bat me away.”
In the end Tim lost his and Gill’s £120,000 life savings to the scam. Tragically, he died 18 months later following a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.