The 44-year-old Auckland woman appeared in Auckland District Court. Photo / Finn Blackwell, RNZ
By Finn Blackwell of RNZ
A woman accused of defrauding a man out of more than half a million dollars in an alleged 18-year romance scam has appeared in court for the first time today.
The 44-year-old Auckland woman was arrested last week after a search warrant was carried out by the Dunedin Police and assisted by the Auckland City Financial Crime Unit.
She appeared in court charged with obtaining more than $517,000 from the unsuspecting Dunedin man between 2006 and 2024.
Judge Belinda Sellars, KC, granted her interim name suppression and remanded her on bail. She has been charged with obtaining by deception.
Police said romance scams were usually carried out by offshore offenders, making prosecutions difficult for law enforcement.
They often involved someone falling in love online and giving the scammer money without ever meeting them in person.
Speaking broadly about romance scams, the head of Auckland’s Financial Crimes Unit, Detective Senior Sergeant Craig Bolton, told RNZ he had not seen a local perpetrator before.
“I’ve been in this role for three years and I haven’t seen one local as a perpetrator,” he said.
“It’s all offshore, it’s all scam centres around the world.”
Bolton said offshore perpetrators were impossible to catch.
“From New Zealand, impossible, there’s no lines of inquiry, the scam centres use layering through numerous jurisdictions and countries before they actually receive the funds so there’s no way of us following it.”
Detective Bolton warned those online against potential scams.
“If you are falling in love online, highly likely it’s a scam, if you are befriending someone online, highly likely it’s a scam, if you are being convinced to invest online, highly likely it’s a scam,” he said.
“Nearly every single one of these examples starts with online contact. The victims never meet the person in person, it’s all done online and they’re always scams.”
Bolton said scammers made up excuses like being on military deployment or on an oil rig to avoid meeting in person.
He said police were dealing with fewer romance scams recently.
“End of last year, there were two or three that we saw, and then this year we haven’t seen one romance scam complaint in Auckland City District.”
However, they were being replaced by cryptocurrency scams, he said.
“The scammer is befriending the victim, and/or falling in love with the victim online, and the victim’s being convinced to invest in crypto.”
Bolton said victims were convinced to invest in a crypto wallet controlled by the scammer, where they are tricked into investing more money.
Police saw cases of crypto scams every week, he said.
Offering broad advice, Netsafe chief online safety officer Sean Lyons said romance scams could take many forms.
“They might now look like much more complicated investment scams, that can be in a whole range of different forms, but at some point the original convincer probably was some kind of romantic relationship.”
“Our numbers for those kinds of scams are probably still on the increase, but that straight categorisation as a ‘this is a romance scam’ is possibly falling away,” he said.
Those concerned they were being scammed should take a moment to step back and look at the whole picture, Lyons said.
“Take a beat and think about what it is that’s happening here, aside from the romantic side of what’s happening, how much risk or how exposed am I in what it is that I’m about to do,” he said.
“If you feel uncomfortable with that, it doesn’t mean the relationship’s over, but it just might mean that you take that kind of power or take that moment to say ‘actually, the relationship aside, I’m not comfortable doing this so I’m not going to do it’.”
Lyons said it could be difficult for people to spot scam flags at the best of times, no matter what they may be.
“Often one kind of flag on its own is easily explained away, or could easily be missed, but it’s often the picture that if people are able to stand back at a period or get another person’s view that’s not quite so emotionally invested in the relationship itself, that suddenly these things can become very clear,” he said.
Changing the course of a conversation suddenly to money – often with time pressure – or the speed in which a relationship may be moving could be flags to look out for, Lyons said.
The alleged scammer was scheduled to reappear in court next month.
– RNZ