A couple from South London duped approximately 80 people, primarily gay men, out of more than £400,000, or $482,126 in U.S. dollars, as part of an elaborate scam that had them posing as single people in need of cash on dating apps.
Fredrick Diji, 37, and his partner, probation officer, Raquel Johnson, 43, created numerous fake profiles and “love bombed” victims they met through dating websites and apps, such as Gaydar and Match. The two would contact their targets via chat messages and telephone calls, build up trust, and then ask them for money for a number of different reasons, reports the UK news website MyLondon.
Among some of the excuses Diji used to entrap victims was that he was being held by Dutch customs while trying to return to the UK, that he needed money to be released from kidnappers, and that his mother had died and he needed money to pay for funeral costs. In some cases, he even sent forged documents, including death certificates, travel documentation and ID documents to back up his stories in order to pressure victims into sending him money.
Often, Diji would promise that he was slated to inherit hundreds of thousands of pounds, saying he needed a temporary loan until he received the funds, and promising to pay his victims back.
Diji’s scam took place between January 2005 and April 2021, according to police. Analyses of online chats and emails, as well as the aforementioned forged documents, which…
