Romance Scam: My Love Interest With A Ghanaian Scammer Cost Me Over $150K

When I suggested I wanted to make the required five hour drive to meet, that is when I got hit with what should have been my first clue of trouble in paradise. She said, “My friend set up this profile for me, I am German and Ghanaian, I am currently in Accra, The Gold Coast.”

I was not looking for a long distance, cross-continental relationship, I had never thought of forming a romantic relationship or friendship with anyone in Africa, it wasn’t what I was looking for, but I was polite enough to keep the conversation going. “What could it hurt?” I thought to myself.

Little did I know how much it was about to hurt. Romance scams hurt. It hurts the pocket, hurts mentally and hurts emotionally.

Save for the distorted image of Africa portrayed by American media, I had no knowledge of Africa. But here I was making African friends, so I began to educate myself. Did you know Ghana has the highest percentage of professed Christians of any country? I was pleasantly surprised, “Wow! Amazing!” 

What I did not find in my preliminary research was the hundreds of millions of dollars scammed in various schemes in Ghana. Ghanaian leaders are wrong in not outright condemning these actions by mostly young people, to say they understand it is to justify it.

Patience is a virtue, even for the wicked and the thief. She was patient, or should I say they were patient?  I know there were multiple people involved so ‘they’ may just be the right pronoun. But for the sake of this narrative, let’s focus on ‘she’, ‘her’, because I fell in love with her, not them. She was patient, cunning, relentless and unscrupulous; she reeled me in tactfully, pulling my already fragile emotional strings, she hooked me. I was convinced I was in love, I gave and gave and gave while she in turn took, and took, and took and asked for more.

I received photos of this beauty I was in love with. High cheekbones and full lips. And curves, even fully clothed and looking respectable, I could still see the curves. She was a beauty, I was over the moon, and couldn’t wait to hold her, this African Queen who had chosen me.

And then she got down to business. First there was a flood that ruined all her personal effects, and she needed financial assistance. I helped just a little after confirming the floods online. Then she needed a little more money for groceries, nothing outrageous, just something small to help her move past the loss due to her home flooding. The small requests were just a primer, to test my pulse maybe? Or to see if I was a victim worth honing in on. I guess she found me worth her time and effort, because she did a number on me.

The requests kept flooding in; she needed a new apartment because the flooded home wasn’t safe, and then money for carpentry, more personal effects and some more groceries. By the time the flood issue went to rest, I had spent a little over $5000. 

She was grateful and affectionate. I was smitten. She even directed her friend who lived in the Unites States, Mary Morris, to mail me a teddy bear, deliver pizza and flowers. 

My girl was concerned for her mother’s ill health, her mother’s heart was failing and without open heart surgery, she was sure to die. For me this was a perfect storm, fresh from the trauma of losing my wife to a long-standing illness, I wanted to help. And I had the insurance money, I knew I could help. Even so I was skeptical and hesitant, but she kept up the pressure and preyed on my emotions, she knew I was in a fragile place emotionally, she took advantage of that. I really couldn’t sit unconcerned and let her mother die, so I agreed.

They provided a nurse’s bank account details to wire the money into, citing some flimsy excuse as to why the hospital was unable to provide their official account.The nurse’s name was Abigail Myles, I got suspicious and dragged my feet. Then I was sent a certain Purple Sterling’s account, he was a supposed church elder. I wired $40K to him, the elder. The Ghanaian bank held on to the money for several weeks, locked the Purple Sterling’s account and sent the money back. My bank called me and gave me a check and said, “Do not come back.”

I should have heeded that warning. But I did not.

My girl blamed me to no end. She yelled at me, shed some tears and then she begged me; her mother would die if I didn’t send the money. Eventually she directed me to wire the money in bits and pieces, which I successfully did. Then of course she needed emergency medicine at the last minute. I paid for it all to save her beloved mother but alas she didn’t make it. Then came funeral expenses which I footed.

Then came the elaborate scheme of helping her get her inheritance. It was a suitcase full of gold bars. Her lawyer said he needed thirty thousand US dollars to help facilitate the transfer of the gold to Mary. They even had a white man show me the ‘gold’ on video.

‘Orphaned’ and desolate, I was left with the responsibility of caring for my dear Mary. I paid for wigs, shoes, a refrigerator, and wired her apartment because her electric wiring broke, and so on and so forth. I shelled out dollars to make her happy. But it never ended, the demands; they kept coming. In hindsight, I know Mary was at the bottom of the scammers’ pyramid, there were others above her who used her to get the money and only gave her scraps. She was just the face of this elaborate romance scam, the real bosses were behind the scenes.

And then she wanted me to marry her so she could migrate to the United States and live with me. I tried to help her get a visa, and that turned out to be yet another elaborate scam on her part. Not one paperwork she sent me was legit. She just took every opportunity she could find to get more dollars from me. She had never intended to get a visa, she was not interested in seeing me, it was all about the money.

I finally figured out that I was being scammed. Because there were some shady business proposals that got me suspicious, and so I smoked out some truths. And the truth was it had all been a lie. Mary had a boyfriend, King Nelson, who was openly bragging on Facebook about how he bought a new Toyota for forty-two thousand dollars. In hindsight, I am convinced King Nelson was the kingpin and the brainchild behind the scheme.

So the painful confession is that in the heat of trying to supposedly help save someone’s supposed life, I got caught in the lie and fantasy that this Ghanaian girl was in love with me, and she very much wanted to come over to the USA and be a grateful wife to me. And before I knew it, she and her cronies had hooked me into a romance scam and sucked me dry; I spent all my money and borrowed more.

By the time they were done with me, I was in so much debt that my credit score was in ruin. I came very close to losing my house because I couldn’t afford to pay my bills. I had to refinance my house in order to afford a  consolidation loan . And there were times I was barely able to afford the bare necessities of life; groceries, gasoline, phone bills, electricity and internet. In all this romance scam cost me in the vicinity of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, but that is just the monies I am able to account for. I know it cost me more.

I know I carry a big part of the blame. I was gullible and not many will empathize, but the end does not justify the means. Many romance scam victims are so ashamed after losing everything, often including their own families’ trust that they commit suicide. There is nothing remotely victimless about these crimes. If you consider the big picture, these cyber crimes are part of the exact thing that keeps the outside world from fully investing in Ghana and the rest of West Africa, and makes victims of all those living in Ghana.

Even six years later, I am now working harder than ever to repay the loans with expensive interests. In essence, those scammers not only stole from me, they stole my children’s inheritance too.

One of the hardest and most embarrassing things I’ve ever had to do was report all this to the FBI. It took me close to six months after the fact to gather the courage to go to the FBI and narrate the entire romance scam. And I was kind enough to let this scammer know that if she ever traveled outside Ghana to US extradition territory, she would be arrested and charged.

The sad part of all this is no one really ever sympathizes with the victim. I reported to the Ghana consulate in Washington DC, I turned over names, bank account numbers, photos, phone numbers and any artifact I had. All they said was, “You were defrauded.”

The lesson I learned? When someone contacts you on Whatsapp out of the blue, block that number and run! Every scammer has a heartbreaking story. Just don’t listen, save yourself the trouble.

Now for a positive note I met my wife through friends here… I went over and did the traditional marriage and we’re working on our house in Ghana too.  My friends all say I’m  Ghanaian although my twi is not too good yet. She is a good woman, almost my age and yet looks like a twenty-nine year old. I am rebuilding my life….Life goes on.