Five women have fallen victim to an online dating scam with criminal elements, and police are warning others before they fall in to the same trap.
Police said they were investigating 11 cases where five women had been tricked in to receiving goods bought with stolen credit cards and sending them on to an address in Ghana, believing they were for a man they had met on an online dating site.
Police were satisfied the women, located in Christchurch, Nelson, Palmerston North, Napier and Auckland, had not knowingly assisted the men, but said there could be others who don't realise what they were doing was criminal.
The women were members of online dating sites such as catholicdating.com, christiandating.com or tagged.com. They had been chatting with the man online, who in many cases said he was from Germany.
After several weeks of online conversations he asked if he could have some items delivered to the woman's house, and if she would then send them onto him overseas.