Love is Cruel VIII

We are exploring the more violent part of the sweetheart scam - when the mark is in the "girlfriend's" home country and is being extorted for funds.

     As discussed, in the more extreme version of the scam, the mark has flown to the "girlfriend's" country and is now being extorted, under violent conditions.  The mark is sometimes, literally, held up at gunpoint.  Sometimes the mark finds himself being charged with phony crimes by the local police or judges, once again having been bought off by the "girlfriend" or the "girlfriend's" family.

    In today's world of instant money transfers and online banking, this is no simple extortion of funds from the mark's wallet.  The "girlfriend" and her accomplices can easily gain access to the mark's life savings, bank accounts or even stocks and 401k plans.  The technology that enables instant communications and makes banking easy also lends itself to this kind of extortion.

     Once again, the entire purpose of the "girlfriend" and the "girlfriend's" accomplices is to get the mark to her home country, where she has the advantage, and fleece the mark for everything he has.  As stated, this is the dark side of the sweetheart scam (as if there is an upside to all of this).

    This goes against the original statement, of course, that the sweetheart scam is like the 419 scam in that the purpose of the scam is to continue the scam as long as possible.  Clearly, once the mark is robbed, he will not be coming back.  But, like all frauds, the sweetheart scam is sometimes used by criminal gangs and organizations who will take what they can get as fast as possible.  Also, in certain countries, criminal gangs and organizations control aspects of law enforcement and the courts, so they have no fear of any kind of prosecution.  In this respect, their are exceptions to the way the sweetheart scam works.

   We will continue our conversations the day after tomorrow.  I wish everyone a happy Independence Day.

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Have a great and fraud free holiday.

------------>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>gene tausk