“For five years, my online lover rendered me homeless
while professing love for me,” this is the confession of a widow tricked into
poverty by an online lover in major romance scam.
Smithfield is a rural town in the Johnston County of
North Carolina, southern United States. Highway 70 snakes through the sparse
downtown of this tobacco and cotton county. The population is a mix of Hispanic
migrant farmers and early white and black settlers since it was chartered in
1759. This town’s agro economy is sustained by farm produce such as tobacco,
strawberry, cotton, soy beans and small businesses. It has a population of
15,000 residents.
Kathyrn Ann Davis is one of the senior citizens that
have within the past two decades, called Smithfield home: She is in her mid sixties
and life seemed to have patronised her with shares of sadness, sorrows,
betrayals, death and scam. Kathy retired as a hair dresser and a painter.
Her stepdaughter, Christina Urbina, a nurse with the
county’s public health centre, described her thus, “She is a very kind hearted
woman. Bless her heart.”
In 1994, sassy Kathy met and fell in love with her
late husband, Bobby Broughton, Christina’s dad. They were blessed an amazing
10-year marriage before he died tragically from a car accident.
“He was all I had. My husband loved and celebrated me.
He gave me life and reasons to live. He decorated my life and everyday with him
was a sparkle, until that tragic day in 2004 when he was hit by a car. My world
died with him. I lost a dear friend and partner. I lost everything and didn’t
know how to move on with life. Life was horrible living without him.”
Lonely days without her husband were cold feelings for
a mid-aged widow in a small town. Kathy was in severe mourning. She mourned
Bobby Broughton for five years.
A friend later introduced her to the new social media
rave sweeping planet earth. Kathy decided to join the digital, live-now -age of
instant media and interact with the outside world. She was looking for anyone
to chat with. She was seeking friend and friendship, five years after her
husband died.
“The memories of his painful death were hard on me and
I needed to heal from that. Encouraged by few friends, I signed onto facebook
and the world opened up for me.
“I was online every day, navigating through new life
and learning this new toy. One evening, a chat request popped up. I had nothing
to lose engaging a stranger in a chat room. I was safe in my far away country
home. This day had been boring; my heart was heavy. I was home alone, musing on
the computer. His name sounded exotic and foreign: Rasheed Muhammed from
Tamale, in Northern part of a West African country called Ghana. I was shocked
at the quick introduction. I was sitting in my little home located in a small
dirt country road and chatting live with someone from the continent of Africa.
I didn’t care about his race or his country. I was mesmerised by how far we
were then, yet so close. I was curious about his chat request. He wanted to
know me; I was beautiful and attractive. His words on the screen were
enchanting and sexy. I was touched by his words popping on the screen of my
desktop. I began to respond to his chat, we would chat late into the night that
first day. It was a different feeling. I found a companion; online…Rasheed Muhammed
later changed his name to Mike Williams.
“Every day since our first chat encounter, was great
expectation. I logged off evenings, after an all day chat with him, praying
that this new Ghanaian would come back online and chat with me. I began to feel
certain comfort in his association with every chat. One week into this madness,
I asked for his pictures. He immediately sent me a picture. We exchanged phone
numbers and email addresses so he could reach me by all means. We chatted at
every chance and opportunity that we were privileged. I would take my phone to
everywhere and chat with him. I became possessed by his chats. If we were not
online, we were exchanging emails, interrupted by his regular phone calls.
Slowly, I fell into this obsession.
“We got to know each other through the internet,
texting and chatting and phone calls. I didn’t know he was laying down a
perfect strategy for a major romance scam. He would tell me everything about
himself and his desire for a family. The more he shared, the hungrier I wanted
him. He told me things I needed to hear. Things no man ever whispered to me. He
would describe how he wished to make me feel inside as a real woman. I would be
rotten by his love, affection and attention. Hmmm! I felt I hadn’t been
romantically and erotically touched since my husband died five years then. He
made me hungry for sex. His words were moisturisers lubricating my body. They
felt sensual. His messages and phone calls gave me erotic chills. I wanted him.
He was seducing me with his words. I was listening to the voice of a strong
black panther in the savannahs of Africa, hungry for love; thirsty for passion.
I couldn’t resist his soothing sensual baritone. They were captivating and
filled with aura. I wanted him badly. He was natural. A fresh mahogany from
West Africa! Every text he sent made me fall deeper in love. My loved ones
noticed the sudden changes in my life’s attitudes: I looked happier and more
interactive. I was a beloved woman, again.
“He was too desired to resist! He was a plethora of
passion. I felt differently each day online with him. He enriched me sexually
and sensually. I knew this was my man. If you wanted something, then go get it.
The world would not wait for you to come to it. Go and own it. I wanted to own
him, in love and in health, till death do us part. He had given me the reasons
to celebrate and adore him the remainder of our lives. I decided to take my
chances with this stranger and scammer.
“Three months after the comfort of knowing him, he
asked me to loan him $1000. He promised to pay back the money. I quickly
gathered the money and sent through Western Union. He used a different name,
Abul Karin Sisu, to collect the money. I was stupidly falling for him, so I
didn’t bother to see the early signs. He told me that he had adopted a girl and
was responsible for another young man attending school of medicine. I felt it
was encouraging for him to be responsible to his young brother and found the
heart to adopt another baby girl. I didn’t care about the money. I just wanted
to help and support him so he could help those children with best education and
life. I signed onto that by sending him money whenever he requested. These
requests were always frequent. Sometimes I would send $2,000 within three weeks
to the love of my life.
“I continued to fall deeper and deeper into his lies:
in one of such lies, he said he bought me a BMW convertible, waiting for me in
Ghana. He sent pictures of the car from the car dealership. Imagine an old
white woman who used public transportation in her town and had a stylish
expensive BMW convertible waiting for me 7,000 miles away and in the beautiful
continent of Africa. I was in heavens. Jebose, all the things he told me and
promised sounded so good. He said he bought a wedding ring; that we would marry
in Accra. He sent pictures of houses that he said belonged to us in Ghana. He
told me he used some of the money I sent to invest in real estate business. He
sent me pictures of our property, a sprawling estate we owned in Ghana, all purchased
with money I was sending. These were beautiful homes. He sent another picture
of this lovely home in the hills, claiming that it was our country home. He
told me that when he came to United States, we would visit Florida, Hollywood,
then return to live in our country home on the hills in Accra, Ghana. I was
thrilled.
“I was a lonely widow, barely surviving in a small
home that I shared with my late husband, struggling to pay mortgage from my
welfare and social security cheques, owning a plush and lavish estate with
beautiful buildings in Accra Ghana, was splendid, a major life changer. I
wished! The pictures he sent encouraged me to be sending him money for five
years until I was almost homeless: my step daughter came to my rescue. I
believed so much in what the fool was telling me. Through those five years, I
sent $100,000 by Western Union to him.”
She constantly borrowed money from friends and family
to feed her new friend in Ghana. Her step daughter, who was worried about her
financial behaviour, confronted her on her rising debts to the family and
demanded an explanation. Kathy said she was sending the money to her fiancée in
Africa who was investing in property estate. That raised suspicion. The
stepdaughter tried to tell her that her love story to a stranger in Africa, a
stranger she had not met, was an online scam, but she wouldn’t listen until
January last year when she ran out of money, again. . She pleaded with her step
daughter to help her. She refused the financial rescue. The step daughter told
her she knew of a great African family friend that would help solve the puzzle
of deceit and scam and she brought her to me.
After listening to the pathetic story of engagement to
this phony love, we asked Kathy to surrender her cell phone. I was also given
the phone number of this Ghana fool. I began having text exchanges with him,
pretending I was Kathy’s sister and Kathy had sent me because she was in the
hospital. Through the exchanges, which I still stored on my iphone, I felt how
easily it was for him to manipulate Kathy. She brought copies of Western Union
receipts used in remitting money for some years.
“Jebose, today, I have lost everything to that
experience. I lost our home. I was almost homeless but thanks to my daughter
and step daughter. I have no place to call my own. I occasionally spend days
with either my daughter or step daughter. That’s life. These are the scars of
life: Muhammed or whatever he called himself pretended to be a trusted friend…
I needed a friend. I didn’t know how to handle the turbulence of my life. The
Ghanaian, from long distance, manipulated me with his fake care. He was
effective, rouging the circumstance by pretending to listen to my pains and
giving me attention, affection and promises until he financially, emotionally
and humanly defrauded me. I continue to grieve. I had hoped that by marrying
him, I would begin a new life of happiness. All I wanted was to be loved and
happy again.
Strangely, I was manipulated, lied to, exploited and
abused by this scam. He ruined me financially and in every way. He put me in
debt and I continue to service loans, the money that I sent him. I am a victim
of scam romance and I take responsibility for not being cautious and careful
enough. He came into my life as a friend when I was trying to rise from the
tragedies of life. I was vulnerable.
Source:By Abdul Akeem Azuka Jebose