It started a good six months ago with a harmless chat on Facebook – and has now ended with a financial disaster: A 30-year-old woman from the lake district fell for a scammer and lost at least 60,000 euros as a result.
“The woman’s age doesn’t fit at all into the actual scheme of this type of fraudster,” said yesterday Gerald Sakoparnig, head of the fraud department at the State Criminal Police Office. The average age of the predominantly female victims is generally 54 or 55 years.
The initiation of contact was also rather unusual in this case: It was the young woman herself who actively contacted the later scammer – who called himself “Patrick Davis” on his Facebook profile – after he had liked her postings. Communication was intensified using other text message services, and photos were also sent to each other. Finally, Davis, posing as an orthopedic surgeon from Yemen, feigned money problems. He has a professional contract with the United Nations, which he can only solve by paying high fees. The supposed doctor also promised the 30-year-old a future together in Austria, for which he also needed money for the flight.
Victim went into debt
Since he did not have access to his account himself, he enticed the Upper Austrian from the Vöcklabruck district to make several transactions and Bitcoin deposits abroad. According to Sakoparnig, she transferred at least 60,000 euros in three tranches. She used her entire fortune for this and also borrowed money from friends. The amounts went to Canada and Holland.
In the previous week, the young woman became suspicious and confided in her parents, who immediately encouraged her to file a complaint.
Source: Nachrichten
