The 74-year-old mentioned she “fell in love” with the fraudster, who advised her he wanted cash for authorized charges and life-saving medical therapy.
The scammer created a faux Fb profile to start speaking to his sufferer (Picture: Getty)
A 74-year-old widow was scammed out of half her life’s financial savings after embarking on what she believed to be a web-based relationship with Sir David Attenborough. Diane, whose identify has been modified for anonymity, handed CA$22,000 (£12,000) to a fraudster posing because the 99-year-old broadcaster after receiving a pal request on Fb. After initiating contact in October 2024, the cyber legal moved their dialog to the Telegram messaging app, and simply weeks into the rip-off, they have been declaring their love for one another.
Diane, who lives in Canada, continued messaging the particular person she believed to be Sir David for months, staying up late to speak to him on UK time. The fraudster advised the 74-year-old that his ex-wife had stolen tons of of 1000’s of kilos from him and mentioned he wanted cash to cowl authorized charges and fund life-saving kidney therapy.
Over half of all romance fraud circumstances begin on social media (Picture: Getty)
She initially deposited CA$4,000 (£2,200) right into a cryptocurrency account at his request, earlier than making additional funds of between a number of hundred and a number of other thousand {dollars} – all of which is sort of not possible to hint or recuperate.
By March 2025, she had despatched nearly half of her life financial savings, leaving simply CA$6,000 (£3,300) in an account she might entry.
In return, the scammer made Diane guarantees of marriage if she bought her flat and moved to London, prompting her to purchase a passport – however, even then, she had doubts.
The 74-year-old advised The Unbiased: “All this time, a bit voice inside was saying, ‘Diane, reduce it off. He is scamming you.’ However I used to be in love with him.”
When she requested for proof of his id, she obtained an AI-generated video, full with the pure historian’s voice and picture.
Diane lastly reduce off contact with the fraudster when confronted by her son, Jim, who had discovered what she was doing and satisfied her to cease.
10 days later, the scammer, nonetheless pretending to be Sir David, emailed: “You by no means deserved me. You pretended you really liked me if you by no means did. You might be an fool for inflicting me this ache in my coronary heart.”
Regardless of admitting the truth of the rip-off, Diane was lured again in round six weeks later, when she emptied the rest of her financial savings and despatched them to the cyber legal.
She has since sought medical assist and opened a joint checking account along with her son, enabling him to watch her transactions.
Romance fraud has change into more and more widespread lately, with analysis from UK Finance suggesting it sometimes entails extra funds than another sort of fraud.
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An estimated £20.5 million was misplaced to romance scams within the first half of 2025, and the determine has nearly doubled year-on-year since 2020.
Evaluation of TSB knowledge by the Nationwide Fraud Intelligence Bureau discovered that 58% of all romance fraud circumstances begin on social media, with 29% involving superstar impersonations.
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