South African investigators have swooped on a syndicate of ‘Tinder Swindlers’ using fake identities to dupe unsuspecting internet daters and steal their money.
A 46-year-old suspect appeared in court in Cape Town on Monday, after he was arrested following a months-long investigation involving both police and private detectives.
He is the second arrest in a case involving an elderly Cape Town woman who thought she had befriended a man named ‘Alexander Lucas’ on the popular Tinder dating site.
The woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, soon parted with nearly R2m, thinking she was assisting her new friend who claimed to have been the unfortunate victim of an armed robbery in the Eastern Cape.
‘Lucas’ was in fact a Nigerian illegal immigrant living in Cape Town. He claimed to be of Greek heritage and resided in the US. It took just a few weeks of interactions with his victim before he declared his love for her and then started trying to get money from her.
“At one point he claimed to be a victim of an armed robbery in the Eastern Cape while handling his father’s estate, during which all his valuables, including a Rolex watch and his bank cards, were stolen,” said private investigator John Alexander from Royal Investigations, who probed the case alongside SAPS Sgt Donovan Petersen.
On June 21, Jude Imafidon Momodu was finally arrested with assistance from the Western Cape Flying Squad in Dunoon, Cape Town. He has been in custody since then.
The investigation uncovered that he used pictures garnered off the internet of an American real estate businessman Bryan Chad Choate.
“He (Choate) was unaware that his photos were being used by a scammer in South Africa,” Alexander said in a statement following the latest arrest.
Western Cape police this week confirmed a second fraud suspect had been arrested on Sunday.
Now the net is closing on a third suspect, considered to be the syndicate mastermind, Alexander told the Sunday Times this week.
“The main suspect is known to us, and his arrest is imminent.”
He said the syndicate had purchased property with the proceeds of crime and were running a bed and breakfast business.
“The fact that we can prove this is a syndicate means we want to have them charged under the Prevention of Organised Crime Act,” said Alexander, adding that numerous syndicates were most likely operating out of South Africa.
Investigations into a much larger syndicate were well advanced, with a docket already with the Hawks.
He said the syndicates used dating websites, notably Tinder and Dating.com, to search for likely profiles, with elderly widows a prime target.
“They look for very specific individuals and they play a long game. They send nice messages, sometimes for months, in a grooming process. Unlike the real Tinder Swindler — made famous in a Netflix documentary — these guys don’t spend a cent.”
“Though in one case in Randburg there were a suspect we identified that went so far as to send flowers and roses via Uber.”
Alexander said his advice to elderly people was not to post too much personal information on dating sites.
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