A south London couple who defrauded vulnerable victims out of hundreds of thousands of pounds in an eleborate romance scam have been sentenced.
Ibrahim Moro, 33, from Bromley, and Rebecca Patrick, 32, from Croydon, targeted older and vulnerable victims on dating sites before gaining their trust and asking for thousands of pounds.
On Tuesday, Moro was jailed for five-and-a-half years while Patrick received an 18 month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months over the scam.
Croydon Crown Court heard how one victim, an elderly man based in Australia, had been duped into believing he was in a relationship with Patrick.
She and Moro gained his trust, asking for small amounts at first, saying it would be used to buy her warmer clothes for winter.
The victim was then told Patrick was entitled to 78kg of gold in Ghana and had to pay for it to be released, but that when it was she would move to Australia and live with him.
He transferred 250,000 Australian dollars, (£138,000) at the time it was sent, to the fraudsters, alongside a new phone and multiple other smaller amounts of money over a year-long period. He died before the couple were sentenced.
Another victim was tricked into thinking they were in a romantic relationship with a man who didn’t actually exist. She was persuaded to send £18,000 after fraudsters told her they were having problems with insurance.
A third was conned into sending money to a man she thought was a German widower living in Ascot, buying gold, silver and diamonds for clients.
They started a friendship online and although she never met him, she regarded the man as “a close friend and confidant”, the court heard.
In March 2016, she was told he had bought some precious stones overseas, but was unable to return until he had paid taxes on them.
The victim was asked to pay the amount and was told “if you don’t loan me the money, that means you don’t care about me”. She felt under pressure and paid £2,500 into Patrick’s account.
An American victim also transferred more than £8,000 to Moro in April 2014. Moro transferred £5,500 out days later to two other accounts before withdrawing £1,400 in cash.
Hundreds of thousands of pounds taken from victims is believed to have been sent straight to Moro’s bank accounts in Ghana.
Investigators linked Moro to the email account used to defraud the Australian victim and showed that the addresses Moro and Patrick provided to their victims were the same addresses they gave to their banks.
Both defendants denied the offences, with Moro claiming the money that had gone into his account was from a clothing business he had set up in Ghana.
Patrick claimed she had given Moro access to her accounts to send money to his family in Ghana.
The judge in the case ordered all money seized in the investigation to be returned to victims.
Paul Boniface, Operations Manager at the National Crime Agency, said: “These defendants exploited the vulnerability of their victims, selling them a relationship story they desperately wanted to believe.
“Romance fraud affects victims not only financially but also emotionally – many victims find it too painful to contemplate they have been scammed by someone they thought they could trust.”
