WOMAN TRACKED DOWN MR RIGHT AFTER BEING I was victim of online rat... then found love with man whose profile he’d stolen

THE search for Mr Right looked truly over when Emma Perrier met a great-looking young guy called Ronaldo via a website.

But after a whole year of chatting online, the 35- year- old restaurant manager began to get suspicious of her Romeo’s regular excuses not to meet her face to face.

So she turned detective and found out “Ronaldo” was actually a 55-yearold shop fitter from Stratford-uponAvon called Alan Stanley.

Emma had been CATFISHED – web slang for the practice of using snaps of better looking people to lure other social media users into online relationships.

But furious Emma wasn’t going to just let it lie and put it down to experience. Instead she decided to find the man whose image Alan had pinched.

She discovered the handsome face she had fallen for belonged to 35-yearold model Adam Guzel, who lived nearly 2,000 miles away in Turkey.

Now, in a remarkable twist of fate, Emma and Adam have met and fallen for each other.

And the pair want to thank Stanley for bringing them together.

Tricked

Emma says: “At first I hated Alan for duping me and was shocked to discover his real identity. But now we are grateful he tricked me because it led me to finding the love of my life.”

Not everyone who is catfished – a term coined by the Catfish MTV show which exposes online love rats – is as fortunate as Emma.

She says: “I hope my story serves as a cautionary tale to others. I was lucky, it led to me finding love but most people just end up heartbroken.

“I thought I was talking to a 35-yearold model and he was actually a 55-year-old man.”

Emma joined online dating site Zoosk in September 2015 because her anti-social hours in a restaurant made it difficult to meet new people.

She quickly received a message from “Ronaldo Scicluna”. She says: “I was blown away by his picture. He was tall, dark and handsome.”

Alan did stick to some truths about himself. He told her he lived in Stratford-upon-Avon, 100 miles away from her home in Richmond, South West London. The more they chatted the more Emma fell for the man in the photograph. She says: “We were t alking f rom morning until night every day. Ronny, as I ca called him, was absolutely gorgeous. I c couldn’t believe my luck.” But after a year of online romance, Emma beganbega to feel as if something was a bit of off. Ronaldo was never f free for a video call, let alone to meet u up in person. So Emma downlo downloaded Reverse Image – an app that traces pictures – in September 2 2016. The truth was devastating devastating. Emma says: “Some pics Ro Ronaldo had sent me of food fro from a holiday to Italy traced back to a Tripadvisor accountac – and the name on it w was Alan. Two week weeks later Emma received a pi picture of a steak from RonaldoRonal claiming he was havin having dinner on another tr trip to Zurich. But wh when she put the picture into the app it linked b back to the same Tripadv Tripadvisor account. She says: “It was devast devastating and I felt sick.” She confronted RonaldoR online and he confessed and apologised. Emma says: ““He told me he was bored and lonely. He admitted he was a dad, over 50 and divorced.

“He said he found the pictures and used them because he thought no one would talk to him if he used his own.”

Devastated, she began to wonder who the man in the picture was. Using Reverse Image, she went through every photo Ronaldo had ever sent her.

One traced back to a Twitter account for Adam Guzel, who lived in Istanbul.

In September last year, Emma tracked Adam down on Facebook. She says: “I was shaking when I sent him a message. I wasn’t sure it was definitely the right person.” Her message read: “We don’t know each other but a year ago I met a guy online who was using your pictures and pretended to be you under a different name. I wasn’t sure if getting in touch with you was a good idea but I just need you to know.”

A few hours later Emma received a reply. “He thanked me for alerting him and told me he suspected the photos had been stolen.”

For three months the pair chatted and in January 2017, Emma suggested they do a video call. She says: “I wanted