Capetonian women have been known to complain about the local dating scene, and now the city has been dubbed “an international cybercrime capital” after a string of victims of a dating scam have come forward.

The entire romance-scam syndicate is estimated to have netted in excess of R4 billion, and those numbers are believable when you consider that the four women the Sunday Times spoke with claim to have been taken for R16 million between them.

The scam’s modus operandi sounds familiar enough, with some more advanced tweaks along the way:

The women all believed they had found love and made plans to meet the men, who portrayed themselves as successful business people and created sophisticated false identities to reel in their victims…

A member of one of the foreign law enforcement agencies investigating the syndicates said the targets were usually aged between 50 and 65.

“This is not your Nigerian prince scam. It’s psychological. It’s the complete mental deconstruction of these women. If they target 15 people and they get one hit it’s still worth it,” said the source.

He said the perpetrators were all in Cape Town “and they are always Nigerians”, which was why the city was now dubbed “New Lagos” in international law enforcement circles.

In December of last year alone, 15 women around the world made contact with embassies based in Cape Town, requesting assistance for men who had told them they were hospitalised in the city and in need of money:

“That’s how we found out about some of the women who were scammed. We’ll be like, ‘OK, have you ever met your “fiancé”?’ and none of them have,” he said.

“[They could operate in] Botswana [but] it’s not as nice as Cape Town, and everyone suspects [people in] Nigeria. The big part of the scam is the American travelling to Cape Town. And the money always comes here. Would we have as many victims if they were asked to send money to Nigeria? The South African angle works better.”

It’s believed there are at least three syndicates operating in the city, with Table View one of the more popular bases of operations.

Whilst many of the stories spun by the crooks are similar to what we’ve heard before, the level of sophistication is often more advanced, with some of the scams even having actors based overseas who can field phone calls.

The Sunday Times spoke with each of the four women about how they were duped, one of whom, Gillian Goldman, claims to have lost R10 million.

You can read those accounts in full here.

Not that it needs saying, but if you’ve never met somebody in person and they’re asking for vast sums of money to be transferred to them, that’s something of a red flag.

[source:sundaytimes]