Lover gave his Tinder partner £182,000 to invest for him
A BUSINESSMAN who transferred £182,000 to a woman he met through Tinder won a High Court battle yesterday to have his money returned.
Marcel Kooter, 57, was said to be “blinded by attraction” when he met Manuela Radeva, a woman 20 years his junior, in February 2017.
During a nine-month relationship, he gave the Bulgarian national the cash as she said she was an investment banker.
However, she was not a professional financier, nor even single – having wed another man a few weeks before she made contact with Mr Kooter, he claimed. After their relationship broke down, he sued Ms Radeva, claiming he had only given her the money to invest for him, thinking she was a high-level professional investment expert.
But Ms Radeva denied his claim, said she was married but “amicably separated” and insisted that, as her “wealthy boyfriend”, Mr Kooter gave her the bulk of the money to support their “expensive, luxurious lifestyle” together.
Ordering her to return the £182,000, Judge John Cavanagh QC said: “Mr Kooter accepts that they lived a luxurious lifestyle. But there is a great deal of evidence to show Mr Kooter was giving substantial sums of money so she could invest on his behalf, she having led him to believe she was an expert investor.”