Romance scams make up a large share of fraud perpetrated against Americans, with scammers often contacting victims through online dating apps, social media, or professional networking sites such as LinkedIn.
They commonly use an image of a beautiful young woman or a handsome man and slowly seduce the victim, persuading them into thinking they are in a romantic relationship before tricking them into handing over money.
The FBI has been targeting international operations, many of which run romance scams against Americans. In its latest round of arrests, the agency arrested 28 suspects at scam centers in Ghana and Nigeria—with help from tech firms including Meta—owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
FBI Director Kash Patel said its agency-led Operation Blackout has led to the arrest of hundreds of alleged scammers, the seizure of $17 billion, and warnings being given to more than 10,000 Americans who were in danger of being swindled out of money.
LinkedIn Message Led to $850,000 Scam
Anola Johnson said she was first contacted by a “very attractive” man on LinkedIn in March 2023, who wooed her online for several weeks.
Johnson, a 69-year-old divorcee in Utah with two adult children, said she quickly became “infatuated” with the man but just before they were due to meet, he told her he had to travel to Abu Dhabi for work.
I just remember, I was sitting in this chair, and the room just started spinning, and I realized that everything I had, I had just sent to a scammer.
Anola Johnson, scam victim
While he was there, he persuaded her to invest $50,000 in cryptocurrency.
Nine months into the relationship, she discovered he was a scammer who had tricked her with video calls, which she later realized were faked using artificial intelligence (AI).
“I just remember, I was sitting in this chair, and the room just started spinning, and I realized that everything I had, I had just sent to a scammer,” Johnson told The Epoch Times.
She lost a total of $850,000. And she is not alone.
On Sept. 11, six Nigerian nationals—allegedly members of the Black Axe network—were extradited from South Africa to the United States to face trial over $6 million worth of alleged romance fraud, which targeted 100 Americans.
Erin West, a former Santa Clara County prosecutor and founder of anti-fraud nonprofit Operation Shamrock, told The Epoch Times that while Black Axe and other scammers in West Africa did significant damage, the money stolen was “pennies” compared with the romance frauds operating out of industrial-scale scam centers in Southeast Asia.
“This is the most lucrative business that’s ever been constructed,” West said. “You’ve got people you’re not paying to do the work, and you’re forcing them to do it, and then you are stealing billions upon billions upon billions of dollars from the rest of the world.”
A report by the Consumer Federation of America, published in March, projected that Americans are losing $119 billion every year to online scams, many via romance fraud.
Rep. Jefferson Shreve (R-Ind.) told The Epoch Times he had talked to constituents who have lost large amounts of money to foreign-based scams, and he hopes the United States can “turn back the tide of this burgeoning criminal activity.”
“So many of these industrial-scale scam centers are supported in the periphery of China in South Central Asia,” Shreve said. “I have seen many of the large scam centers in Laos, in Myanmar, in parts of the world like that. And they come from a legacy of China’s efforts to retool what was their gaming apparatus or operation in years past.”
The scam centers are increasingly targeting English-speaking victims, according to a British law enforcement official.
Nick Sharp, deputy director of fraud at the UK’s National Crime Agency, said that five or six years ago, scam centers in Southeast Asia were targeting Chinese-speaking victims.
“That is certainly shifting into targeting of the English-speaking world, and that is enabled through increased levels of human trafficking from Africa, and English-speaking nations, into those compounds.”
[Many of the large scam centers in Asia] come from a legacy of China’s efforts to retool what was their gaming apparatus or operation in years past.
Rep. Jefferson Shreve
In some romance frauds, scammers create a bogus crisis that requires victims to urgently send money to their online partners; or sometimes ask victims to send funds so they can book a plane ticket to visit.
Matthew Hogan, a detective with the Connecticut State Police and an officer on the Secret Service’s Financial Crimes Task Forces, told The Epoch Times that the Asia-based scammers were usually after bigger money.
“These are specialized units, and they have these things pre-developed to deploy as needed,” Hogan said. “So they’ll be whatever they need to be.”
“If they want to be Chinese, they‘ll be Chinese. They won’t hide the fact that they’re Chinese because they’ll have the accent,” he said. “But … obviously with AI’s assistance, they can kind of take on any kind of persona they need to be.”
“So if they want to be Indian, they‘ll modify it, they’ll have the accent or whatever,” Hogan said. “I think you really have to think of this as a business operation.”
Hogan said some of those working in Asian scam centers will focus on romance scams, while others will concentrate on government impersonation fraud or child sexual abuse material scams, in which victims are tricked into believing they are about to be exposed for viewing child sexual abuse images.
Scammers Often Deploy AI
In romance fraud, scammers often use AI and other tools to portray themselves as wealthy, Hogan said.
In Johnson’s case, the scammer “showed” her his bank account, which he claimed held $4 million.
Hogan said scammers often claim to have “an uncle” or another close relative who works for a well-known cryptocurrency exchange or brokerage and has inside knowledge of an upcoming investment opportunity.
“They’ll also show a lavish lifestyle without saying it,” Hogan said. “So they may not say that they’re wealthy, but they’re going to express that they’re wealthy by the cars they drive, what they’re doing during their work week.”
Sometimes, along with “lovebombing” their targets, scammers also discuss money and investments early in the relationship.
“If someone you’ve never met before, face-to-face, physically, is starting to try to talk to you about investment opportunities, that should immediately be a red flag,” Hogan said.
He said most scammers try to develop a rapport before mentioning cryptocurrency or other moneymaking opportunities.
Hogan also warned about the danger of being fooled by a video call, either through a smartphone or a laptop app, which can be manipulated using AI tools.
If someone you’ve never met before, face-to-face, physically, is starting to try to talk to you about investment opportunities, that should immediately be a red flag.
Matthew Hogan, officer, Secret Service’s Financial Crimes Task ForcesCourtesy of Matthew Hogan
Meta’s director of intelligence, safety, and signals, Rob Cochran, told reporters his company is eager to disrupt the “bad actors” who use its social media networks.
“We know we’re going to have to use AI better than the bad guys use AI, in order to disrupt these types of activities,” Cochran said at an Oct. 13 briefing.
“So we’re not just focusing on the content of our platforms, but we’re working upstream and working with law enforcement to really prevent any of those scam approaches from happening to begin with,” he said.
Don’t Trust Them
“If you haven’t met them in person, then you should not trust that they exist,” Hogan said.
That point was illustrated in the Hulu documentary, “Hey Beautiful: Anatomy of a Romance Scam,” which first streamed last year in the United States.
The film focuses on three women—one in Connecticut, one in Ontario, Canada, and one in Germany—who were all tricked by a scammer using the same fake photographs of a gay man from Los Angeles called Brian Haugen, who was completely unaware that images he had posted on Instagram were being used and misrepresented.
[Scammers] are willing to stay in this because they keep thinking that you’ll come up with yet another way to come up with more money.
Erin West, founder, Operation Shamrock
Roxy from Connecticut lost only $1,000, but the Canadian victim lost $40,000, and Gaby, from Frankfurt in Germany, was grifted out of more than $1 million.
West said that once the scammers got their hooks into you, they found more imaginative ways to get money from their victims.
“They suggest things like taking a loan out on your house, or you invading your children’s college accounts,” West said. “They’re willing to stay in this because they keep thinking that you’ll come up with yet another way to come up with more money.”
The Department of Justice’s Cyber-Enabled Scam Initiative said 3.7 million bogus social media accounts had been removed as a result of this month’s action against scam centers in West Africa.
“This is what happens when law enforcement executes with precision across the interagency. We are demolishing Scam Centers across the globe and crushing a criminal industry preying on American citizens,” Patel said Oct. 13.
Patel told The Epoch Times in August that the FBI, with other nations’ law enforcement agencies, had seized more than $15 billion, arrested more than 300 individuals, and freed thousands of trafficked victims who had been forced to work at scam compounds.
West said she had visited Southeast Asia in August and found evidence the scam centers were still operating.
She said some people had been indicted and some “big bosses” have left their compounds, which appeared to be shut down.
“Are they gone for good? No,” West said. “The data tells us that this is on the increase, that people are continuing to lose lots of money.”
“What I saw on the ground in Myanmar … was they’ve moved inland,” she said. “They blew up the place that you can see from the river, and they have cleared jungle and are operating it further inland.”
“I’m delighted that the FBI is taking this threat seriously and I look forward to more seizures and more arrests of kingpins responsible for stealing a generation of wealth from the United States,” West told The Epoch Times via email.
Sharp said he could not say whether the Southeast Asian scam centers dwarf those in West Africa.
“They both do extreme harm, and that’s why we focus on both,” Sharp said.
Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI’s Criminal Division Matthew Floyd said scam centers in Southeast Asia seemed more involved in crypto investment scams because they require “larger infrastructure.”
He told The Epoch Times they couldn’t say how many scammers in West Africa were involved in romance fraud, because they don’t distinguish between romance scams and other types.
A federal Scam Center Strike Force was established in 2025. It says its crypto seizure team has seized more than $938 million in cryptocurrency from suspected scammers after targeting major scam centers in Southeast Asia, many of which are run by Chinese organized crime.
The strike force said it’s focused on recovering stolen funds and returning them to victims.
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