A mum who thought she met her dream man has revealed how he turned out to be a "Tinder Swindler" - and conned her out of her life savings and cost her her job.
Sunita Brittain, 51, was convinced "Michael Anderson" was the love of her life - and fell for him after meeting online.
He told her he was a successful businessman and multi-millionaire working as a global engineer and cryptocurrency analyst.
They exchanged thousands of messages and photos, and he even told her he loved her and wanted to spend his life with her - even though they had never met.
But, in chilling echoes of the hit Netflix show "The Tinder Swindler", he then began asking for money.
He said he needed £9,000 to get him out of a jail in Northern Cyprus – following an "accident" at his engineering project out there.
Michael pleaded with her for the money in so many calls she even lost a job as a teaching assistant for keeping her phone on her during work.
She then sent the money to an account for what Michael said was his lawyer.
'Michael' claimed he needed the money for flights to Britain.
Sunita then realised something was up and called her bank and told them she feared she had been scammed - and they told her they had frozen the account.
'Michael' then began ringing her making threats, harassing her and told her he would find out where she lived.
Sunita met him online in January but has now not heard from him for a few weeks - and has no idea if she'll get her money back.
Sunita, mother-of-two from Harworth, Notts, said: ''My story parallels with the Tinder Swindler, it is crazy.
"I was so vulnerable, I had just come out of a loveless marriage, was going through a divorce and was just craving some kind of attention to make me feel wanted again.
''He started talking to me in a very intimate way and made me feel like the only woman in the whole world.
“He was telling me things that you imagine in a fairytale, with that happily ever after ending.”
She met her scammer on the Facebook dating site ‘Facebook Dating ❤️’ on January 9.
‘Michael Anderson’, who said he was the owner of a multi-million-pound global engineering company and cryptocurrency analyst, initiated a conversation with Sunita.
Michael swiftly asked for her number, and the pair exchanged thousands of messages on WhatsApp, with Michael initiating "heavy conversations".
Michael told Sunita he was born on the exact same day as her and was adopted - like her - by his parents from Zurich.
On January 13, Sunita and Michael chatted on the phone for the first time and she was convinced of her fraudster's feelings.
Sunita, whose children are 13 and 11 years old, said there were a few red flags that she admits “dismissing” because of her feelings for Michael.
One was his refusal to show his face on video call.
“I found it strange why he never wanted to Facetime”, she admitted.
“He said he was camera shy – the one time I tried, the image from his side was blurry and he looked about 20 years older than his pictures.”
Michael conjured up his elaborate ruse on the 17 January, when he told Sunita he had to go immediately to one of his engineering projects out in Northern Cyprus.
Sunita said: “Michael told me he had to rush out there as there had been a ‘tragic accident’ and he had to provide a huge pay-out of £160,000 to one of the families.
“Three days later, he told me the Cyprus Police are holding him in custody.
“He continued to say how much he loved me and how we will be together when this is all over.
"He called himself 'The King' and me 'The Queen' and told me how much he felt the connection of great love.”
Mr Anderson instructed Sunita to make three separate bank transfers to what he claimed was his lawyer's offshore bank account.
Sunita logged on to his fake account on HorizoGlobal – which has no link to Horizon Global - she later discovered that HorizoGlobale was a fake bank - but where she could see Michael had over £7million in his fabricated bank account.
He told her to transfer three separate transactions to his lawyer – two of £60,000 and one of £40,000 – which got rejected.
“I could see the money in his account going down, it was so realistic and didn’t even cross my mind that it was a fake website," she said.
“He kept telling me the lines were down and there was no Wifi, so I had to keep transferring the money in instalments because he was unable to do it himself.
On January 26, Sunita received a fake email from 'HorizoGlobal' saying Mr Anderson cannot transfer any more money because of “security reasons”.
The email was alerting her they have frozen Michael’s assets until they can see him face-to-face in their Head Office based in Los Angeles.
Sunita said: “I got calls from Michael and he was starting to stress out – saying he would have to sell his bitcoin and borrow money off his lawyer.
“He told me to send the bank my ID and lie saying I was his finance.
“He said he would rather pay the compensation rather than lose his trading business license and needed to buy flights to come home back to me.
“He started guilt-tripping me, begging me to help him – saying he would pay me back.”
That was the moment Sunita made the transaction of £9,000 to the bank account of a second fake identity this time a 'Mr David Gana’s' bank account – Mr Anderson’s "lawyer" based in Coventry.
Michael sent Sunita screenshots of his flights back to Doncaster on January 28, where she was planning to pick him up from before going straight to LA on the Sunday so they could “prove Michael’s identity for his offshore bank account”.
Sunita said: “My suitcase was packed and I was so excited.
“I couldn’t get hold of Michael all afternoon, and suddenly I received a call from one of his ‘lawyers’ saying Michael was arrested by police officials on his flight home for ‘tax evasion’, his phone had been taken away and he was stuck in Police Custody.
“I rung my best friend, telling her about everything that happened and how I was supposed to be going to America.
“She asked me how much I had given him so I told her.
“That is when she said, ‘Sunita. Wake up. You’ve been scammed – you have kids to think of, he could’ve killed you'.
“She could tell right away and that is when the penny dropped and I knew that I had been scammed.
“The whole thing may seem desperate but when you’re on your own, these scammers play with your mind and people don’t understand that.
“When you isolate yourself from people, you can be blind-sighted by somebody getting into your head.”
Sunita immediately notified her bank, who froze her account and got in contact with the Action Fraud Police Unit.
Michael has since been harassing Sunita, phoning her to "unfreeze her bank account".
"He suddenly turned nasty and started threatening me that he would find out where I live" Sunita said.
"He's been calling me on different numbers and shouting, it's terrifying and just horrific.
"On Feb 1 I opened my blinds and saw a suspicious van parked right outside my house so I immediately called the police.
"I have two children and nowhere else to go and just want to stop this from happening to anyone else."
A Meta spokeswoman issued the following guidance for staying safe on Facebook Dating:
- We recommend that all users read our dating safety tips to help keep themselves safe when using Facebook Dating. Please see here.
- We encourage users to watch out for scams - some warning signs we outline within our dating safety tips include the following. If a scammer:
- Wants to leave Facebook Dating immediately and use personal email or IM to chat
- Claims to be in love very quickly to persuade you to talk with them
- Plans to visit, but claims that something bad happened and plans get cancelled
- Scammers may try to get you to wire money or send gifts. They might ask for money to cover travel, medical emergencies, hotel bills, hospital bills or visas. Any online love interest that asks for money is likely a scammer.
- Users should never respond to any requests to send money, wire transfer money or make a donation.
- We recommend contacting your bank and local law enforcement right away if you think you've sent money to a scammer and report anyone who asks you to send money.
