Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Fake Olly romance fraudster’s £80k con
AN international conman who posed as Olly Murs to fleece love-struck women out of almost £200,000 is being probed by police.
The fraudster has targeted besotted fans in at least two countries after pretending to be the singer online.
The crook set up a fake profile and even forged the star’s driving licence, complete with an address in the former X Factor singer’s Essex hometown.
Last night heartbroken single mum Anna Ertl, who lost almost £80,000, told the Sunday Mirror: “He completely fooled me and I gave him everything. I was convinced it was Olly. I thought we’d spend the rest of our lives together.”
The fraudster bombarded her with gushing messages like: “I love you so much and all I want is to spend the rest of my life with you.”
Accountant Anna, 46, was under the scammer’s control for almost three years until she shopped him to police in Austria where she lives last week.
And she is also speaking to a second woman in neighbouring Germany who was plundered for £100,000.
Anna said: “It takes time to accept it wasn’t true. I would have come forward before but I didn’t want to damage his career.
“Today I would say there is nobody more stupid than me, but maybe I wanted to believe.”
In an exclusive interview in Vienna, Anna told how her life was ruined when she joined Twitter in 2018 after a break-up.
She followed profiles about pop music, then received a private message from an account claiming to be Olly, 37 – who in real life is worth £5million and has sold 13 million records.
I started to love him... he said he felt trapped by fame and wanted me ANNA ERTL ON HER ONLINE ‘RELATIONSHIP’ WITH FAKE OLLY
CARING
Anna recalled: “He asked me my favourite song. I said
Dance With Me Tonight.
Then he asked me whether I was single and if I had kids.”
After a few messages the crook asked Polish-born
Anna to download the Google
Hangouts app so they could
“talk more securely”.
The faker then claimed he felt trapped by fame and wanted to break his contract to live a normal life – with someone like Anna.
“I started to love him. I thought it was real,” Anna said. “He wanted to know everything. He remembered everything about me, he wanted to know about what I did. He was always so caring.
“He gave the feeling that he wanted a connection with you.”
The fake Olly told Anna that he had £2.5million hidden away in a Spanish bank account, but was struggling to keep up with fees and taxes because his management barely paid him.
Soon Anna was sending thousands of euros at a time to private bank accounts in Spain – transactions verified by the Sunday Mirror.
Within months Anna, who has a
teenage son, was forced to take out a £31,000 loan, and was struggling with bills.
But despite her growing suspicions, the pair would still exchange up to 600 messages a day.
“There was a voice in my mind saying, ‘Are you stupid?’ But then he is really caring. He lets you feel he really loves you,” she said.
“I did think, if he was famous, why would he do this? [But] you hear about other famous people like Britney Spears under contract… I thought it could be the same case.”
To convince her, the fake Olly sent Anna selfies of the pop star, the fake driving licence, and spoke with her about real events like Murs undergoing knee surgery. He even pretended to try
and make video calls, before claiming the sound was not working.
And in a particularly cruel twist, he created a spoof account for Murs’ mum, Vicky-Lynn, which he used to send messages blaming Anna for not loving “Olly” enough.
In November 2018, the same month the real Olly released his album You Know I Know, the fraudster wrote: “I know all this take time and money from you but I was not lying to you at all… I love you so much and all I want is to spend the rest of my life with you.”
By this time, Anna had handed over more than £60,000. At the end of 2018 she broke off contact, but the fraudster won her back at the start of 2019.
BITCOIN
She said: “I thought, if I leave him now I will never get the money back.
“He didn’t like to accept no. He kept talking until he convinced me.”
From 2019 the fraudster started asking Anna to buy the web currency
Bitcoin for him. One message read: “We started it together and we will finish together as a family. Can help with 1500 pls I beg you for the sake of love and happiness.”
When the real-life Olly started dating bodybuilder Amelia Tank, 29, later in 2019, Anna was devastated.
But the cunning scammer used the fake Vicky-Lynn account to tell her it was “just business” and the relationship meant nothing.
And in March 2020, the faker
convinced Anna to pay another 2,000 euros so he could charter a private plane to visit her in Austria – but he never arrived.
Finally this month Anna was able to turn her back on the fraudster, after he unwittingly put her in contact with another one of his victims while exchanging messages.
She estimates she has lost £77,000 in total and struggles to keep up with her debts. But her focus now is preventing others from suffering the same fate.
“I’m feeling free. I have debts, I have problems, but I can now start a new life. I don’t need to hope that someone is coming for me,” she said.
“For me, for the last few years, he was Olly Murs… I lived for three years with the thought that he’s going to be my partner for life.
“It takes time to accept it wasn’t true.”
Anna added: “I know I will not get the money back. But I could save another woman.”
The Sunday Mirror contacted the fraudster on several email addresses he gave victim Anna, and has received no response.
Yesterday a spokesman for Vienna police confirmed it had launched a fraud investigation into Anna’s case.
The real Olly did not comment. But the Troublemaker singer has posted Instagram videos warning fans to steer clear of fake accounts.
It takes time to accept it wasn’t true... I won’t get cash but could save another victim ANNA ON BEING SCAMMED & WANTING TO EXPOSE CROOK