Con- artist boyfriend arrested
Suspect even ‘ faked’ his mother’s death
THE GUARDIA Civil have arrested a suspected con- artist who allegedly took a quarter of a million euros from a woman in Santa Pola who he faked a romance with for two years.
This victim made a complaint last week about the man she had got to know on a popular dating application, explained a spokesman for the force. He said the suspect had studied her profile then introduced himself using a fake name, address and profession.
She started a friendship with him and he gradually made her believe he had fallen in love with her and they began a relationship.
Soon he started asking her for large sums of money with all sorts of excuses.
She gave him € 50,000 because he said his sister’s house was going to be embargoed and then invested € 18,000 in a popular English football club where he was supposedly going to start work.
The victim also paid for them to go on holiday to Thailand but he claimed the travel agency kept the money, amongst many other stories.
Eventually he pretended his mother was seriously ill and she lent him € 17,000 for her treatment at a prestigious clinic, and then lied that she had died to get another € 5,000 for her burial.
At that point she suspected something was wrong and realised her boyfriend was not the person he claimed, so she started asking him to return the € 253,000 she had given him so far.
When he refused she reported it to the Guardia Civil and officers moved quickly to arrest him in Elche on September 29, as he was about to leave the country.
The suspect is a 42- year- old Uruguayan man and he has been charged with fraud.
Officers searched his home and found numerous expensive items including high- tech mobile devices, jewellery and other goods he had acquired with the money he got from the victim, which have been put in the custody of the court dealing with the case.
The investigation remains open as the Guardia Civil believe he may have other victims, and they encouraged anybody who has experienced a similar fraud to report it.