21st November, 2018
PHOTO: BBC
Online dating is a platform that has afforded people the opportunity to meet up with those they love and later get married to but the fear of romance scammers has chased many away.
In an attempt to unmask online dating scammers, a BBC reporter, Athar Ahmad alongside a private investigator, Laura Lyons teamed up to uncover the romance scammers. Athar had to set up a fake account on a dating site as Kathryn Hunter, a wealthy divorcee looking for love.
One of those to hit her up was Paul Richard, who claimed to be a US soldier in Dubai. But it was later discovered he is a Nigerian named Daniel Joseph Okechkwu who owned a barbing salon in Ibadan, Oyo state.
According to BBC ” One of the soldiers, who calls himself Paul Richard, comes on strong. On day two, he tells Kathryn he’s in love. On day three, he wants to marry her.
He takes the conversation away from the dating site and bombards me with texts. There are messages late into the night and more waiting for me in the morning.
After a week, Paul Richard says he wants to speak on the phone. My producer takes on the role of Kathryn for the call. The number he rings from has a Nigerian dialling code.
After a brief silence, a man with a thick African accent comes on the line. He doesn’t sound like the American soldier whose picture he is using. But Paul explains away his accent by saying he has a cold.
PHOTO: BBC
Paul Richard accidentally leaves a name tag – Dan Coolman – on one of his WhatsApp pictures.
We search through all the Dan Coolmans in Nigeria and we find one who runs a barbershop in Ibadan. He’s using the same number that our catfish has been calling us from.
Dan Coolman is another false name, but we discover the phone is registered to Daniel Joseph Okechkwu.
We then find a Twitter account with that name and the same profile picture as the one used by Dan Coolman.
We have finally uncovered the real identity of our catfish.
We head for Ibadan, but by the time we get there he’s gone. The doors to the barber shop are locked and locals say it’s been closed for weeks.
After three months of talking to our catfish, we decide to call him and tell him who we really are.
Surprisingly, he doesn’t hang up straight away. He sticks to his story about being a US soldier and insists his name is Paul Richard. He denies scamming anybody and then ends the call.
It feels like a disappointing end to our search, but later that night he calls back.
This time, Daniel Joseph Okechkwu confesses. He claims it’s the first romance scam he’s ever pulled and that he has been forced to do it because of the closure of his barber shop.
He sounds sincere and he apologises for the way he has treated us.
Our catfish says he wants to stop being a romance fraudster. But he needs us to give him money, so that he can afford to stop tricking other people out of their cash.
It’s a classic catfish twist. They never give up on the scam even when they have been rumbled”.
– BBC
BBC Panarama shared the story on twitter.
Catching the #catfish.
You can watch ‘Billion-Pound Romance Scam’ tonight at 8:30pm on @BBCOne.
BBC News – How I set out to catch a romance scammer https://t.co/RdJENxnlvC
— Panorama 🌐 (@BBCPanorama) November 19, 2018
My latest investigation for @BBCPanorama – I track down the criminals catfishing people looking for love online https://t.co/V4A9e7az78 pic.twitter.com/0SpIOl0h2t
— Athar Ahmad (@AtharAhmadBBC) November 19, 2018