African Internet Scammers Cheat Bulgarian Women out of Millions Feigning Love

Bulgarian women have been cheated out of thousands of levs through online scams. General Directorate Combatting Organized Crime (GDBOP) reported a case when a record BGN 400,000 was transferred abroad. Women become victims of love affairs, and scammers turn out to be mainly cybercriminals from North Africa.

Two weeks ago, Dimitar's mother found an interesting friend on Facebook. John Maxwell found her on the social network. John managed to build trust easily and gathered personal information about his victim, who lives in Haskovo.

The man promised they will live happily in Bulgaria ever after as he had a lot of money. There was, however, one condition.

"He is a former military man from Afghanistan and one day he witnessed how a bomb hit a jewelry store and he collected all these valuables in one parcel and sent it to my mother, but he was stranded in London and she had to transfer the money to his account in Spain," Dimitar Mitev says.

The elderly woman contacted her son, who lives in Norway. She asked for BGN 8,000, without mentioning what the money was for, as instructed.

"I later realized that she was 100% convinced that she had to pay this money," Dimitar adds. "As you can see, there is no logic in what is on offer, but the manipulation itself, the very way of working upon a particular person makes her do it," the man says.

Dimitar and his wife launched their own investigation to expose the fraud. They contacted the Maxwell in question and found out that the fraudsters were using an identity forgery program.

"He told me he was in a military, but the pictures he sent me in messenger didn't match the person on the Facebook account.

I think they're trying to play a role that portrays them as attractive men,...