A 74-year-old Canadian widow was conned out of nearly half her life savings by a criminal pretending to be Sir David Attenborough.
Diane, whose name has been changed, handed over CA$22,000 (£12,000) to the scammer after being contacted through a fraudulent Facebook profile purporting to belong to the 99-year-old broadcaster.
The fraudster started contact in October 2024 before shifting their conversations to messaging platform Telegram.
Over several months, Diane was manipulated into believing she was in a romantic relationship with the naturalist, who she thought was experiencing health difficulties and legal disputes.
The pair exchanged messages intensively, with Diane staying up late each night to communicate with someone she believed was operating on UK time.
Within weeks, they were declaring their love for one another.
The fraudster then claimed his ex-wife had stolen hundreds of thousands of pounds from him.
He told Diane he needed financial help to pay lawyers so he could recover funds for life-saving kidney treatment.
Diane was manipulated by a scammer into believing she was in a romantic relationship with Sir David Attenborough (file photo)
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She initially sent "Sir David" CA$4,000.
"There were always new excuses," she told The Independent.
The payments continued, ranging from a few hundred to several thousand dollars, deposited into a cryptocurrency account that made the funds virtually impossible to trace or recover.
The scammer offered up promises of marriage to Diane - and urged her to sell her flat and relocate to London.
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The conman, posing as Sir David, urged the widow to sell her flat and relocate to London
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The widow even bought a passport in preparation for the move, though doubts persisted.
"All this time, a little voice inside was saying, 'Diane cut it off. He's scamming you'. But I was in love with him," she said.
Her son Jim discovered the situation and confronted her, prompting her to finally cut off contact with the predatory scammer.
Ten days later, the fraudster emailed her: "You never deserved me. You pretended you loved me when you never did. You are an idiot for causing me this pain in my heart."
Despite knowing she had been defrauded, lingering feelings drew the widow back to the scammer six weeks later (file photo)
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Despite knowing she had been defrauded, lingering feelings drew her back six weeks later, when she emptied her remaining savings and sent everything to the criminal.
Jim and his mother have since opened a joint bank account so he can monitor her transactions, and she has sought medical support.
Romance fraud losses surged to £20.5million in the first half of last year, up more than a third on the same period in 2024, according to UK Finance.
Meanwhile, data from TSB showed 58 per cent of romance fraud cases originated on social media, with 29 per cent involving celebrity impersonation.
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