Nigerian romance scam targets local Marine Sgt.

“I’ve gotten death threats. People tell me I’m the scum of the Earth. Women say, ‘How could you do this to me? I loved you.’ ”

That is the story of happily married Camp Pendleton Marine Sgt. Tristan King ’s life these days.

He is the unwitting victim of romance scam artists.

The drama started playing out about 21⁄ years

2 ago when the active-duty Marine and fitness buff started growing his social media platform. He has 65,000 followers on Instagram alone, where he is a sponsored athlete and posts almost daily fitness and nutrition promotional videos.

First, a friend informed him that someone was pretending to be him and was using his photo on the dating app Tinder. Then he learned about another fake online account, then another and another as family members and friends spotted his image on different social media apps.

After a while, King was receiving several reports a day about profiles impersonating him. He reported them to Instagram and other social media site administrators, asking that they be taken down. But new ones quickly popped up.

King discovered that his military profile was being used to lure lonely and vulnerable women — and some men — into online romances for the purpose of bilking them out of money.

It came as no surprise to King that a significant number of his new online followers were Nigerian. In fact, he initiated a video chat on one of his fake profile accounts on Instagram and a startled Black man who could barely speak English, likely from Nigeria, appeared on the screen and quickly hung up.

The victims we usually hear about in these romance schemes are the lonely ladies desperate for love coerced by their online suitors into sending money. But there is another set of victims — those of identity