MySpace man-eaters come from Russia with love

Louisa Hearn
July 25, 2007

Foreign fraudsters are sniffing out victims through social networking sites such as MySpace - and this time it's not the teens who need to watch out.

Any male over the age of 40 who describes himself as "single" on his MySpace or Facebook profile may already be in the sights of a Eastern European crime consortium looking to extort money, using love as the lure.

Danny, a 45-year-old music producer from New South Wales who recently set up his first Myspace profile, joined the network to locate old business associates and showcase his music. Although romance was the last thing on his mind, he was intrigued when he received a message from an attractive Russian doctor called Lena, who claimed to like his profile.

Although he wasn't actively seeking a girlfriend at the time, they began to correspond via email, and before long Lena was sending him photographs of herself and penning long, gushing emails about her hopes and dreams to one day visit him in Australia.

"I was very new to Myspace when her first message arrived. She was a doctor and that was what interested me because I was keen to find out more about a health condition I was researching - plus she was pretty. But it was a little disarming that her emails were so romantic right from the start."

What Danny didn't know at the time was that Lena was probably not a woman at all but crime consortium operating out of the Czech Republic, executing what is commonly referred to as the Russian dating scam.

The scam unfolds in much the same way as the classic Nigerian scam. An ongoing dialogue with the victim is initiated and once trust has been established, the scammer typically appeals for some type of help - generally to move funds or help out the victim who may suddenly find themselves in trouble.

In the case of Lena, she said she had decided to visit her sister in Australia and see Danny at the same time, and because she didn't ask for money at the outset, he took her at her word, and began to plan for her visit.

"I was happy for her to come, but I wasn't about to send her money or anything. I thought maybe she was young and doing something a little rash," he said.

It was not until she revealed that her sister's husband was encountering problems transferring the money to Russia for her airfare, Danny's suspicions were aroused. And when she finally asked him directly to transfer money on her behalf, he decided to dig around a little, and uncovered a number of references to the Russian Dating Scam on forums dedicated to victims.

"It was then I became aware that she was very likely scamming me," he said.

Based on his research findings, Danny checked the IP address attached to Lena's emails and discovered they were coming from the Czech Republic - not St Petersburg where she claimed to live. In addition, her emails had been sent through a mass emailing client. When he asked her to clear up these anomalies, he never heard back from her.

Although Danny was not ultimately a victim of the fraud, there are plenty of less savvy internet users falling for dating scams, and a large number of scam baiting websites and forums have been created to share tales of woe and help educate internet users.

Although warnings about fraudulent suitors are issued on some online dating sites, social networking sites do not tend to caution members or police the blank profiles used by scammers to send messages to members.

Detective Inspector Bruce Van Der Graaf, who works in the NSW Police's computer crime investigation unit, said he had heard of some very unfortunate personal accounts of people losing out in Russian dating scams. However he said there was little authorities in Australia could do once money had been handed over.

"I have never heard of anyone recovering money from these international scams ever," he said.