Love scam: how to avoid theft in dating apps or social networks

In the last year, the police and the Federal Revenue have intensified the alert for the “coup of love”, or sentimental fraud, as it has appeared in some courts.

The term encompasses different types of fraud, but they all consist of involving the victim sentimentally in order to gain economic advantage. In some cases, the romantic approach can take months. Although not new, crime has become more frequent on social media.

THE Sheet showed this Sunday (5) the case of a victim in São Paulo who lost about R$ 600 thousand with a fraud that started on Tinder and ended in a fake cryptocurrency brokerage. Other reports with similar attempts reached the report.

A lawyer who preferred not to be identified said that she had been talking to a foreigner for more than a month and that he even agreed to make a video call (in poor quality and always interrupted by the alleged fragility of the signal) to try to show that it was not a fraud.

Although she strayed from the subject of finances, he tried to talk about it. After putting his image in the Google Lens application, which leads to the photo indexed in the search engine, she saw that the scammer used the photo of a German politician.

Another person reported talking to a supposed doctor on Tinder who claimed to be in the war. He asked for R$25,000, arguing that his money would be in jail. When searching for the photo on Google, the woman identified that he used the image of an athlete.

Fraud is usually registered by the police as sentimental embezzlement (even if it did not occur on the internet). The term love blow is recent and is linked to the increase in this type of action on social networks.

“Legal language is sentimental fraud, which has always existed, but is now facilitated by virtual means, where the person creates contexts without having to know the victim personally. Sometimes, the victim does not proceed in the criminal sphere. In civil, he can get a conviction for moral damages when the embezzler is found”, says criminal lawyer Pedro Martinez.

Authorities point to patterns in this type of interaction: the person claims to be a foreigner and shows the intention to live in Brazil; the conversation takes place in English or the scammer says he will translate his speech into Portuguese; the photo is stolen from someone else from the internet; the WhatsApp number is international; and, inevitably, money appears at some point in the conversation.

The crime can involve false investments in cryptocurrencies, bank transfers, donations and, in the most extreme cases, kidnappings. What unites these scams is emotional manipulation, always linked to romance.

Last year, the IRS recorded an increasing volume of reports in which the victim was induced to pay a sum to the criminal to access goods and cash that would be held at airports. These reports include “marriage proposals” and gift boxes, such as an alleged engagement ring.

In this type of scheme, the criminal says he intends to move to Brazil, that a package of his is held at customs and that he needs transfers from the victim to be able to release it. The shipment would be part of your move or some gift.

According to the authority, there are other episodes in which the scammer claims to be sick and sends fake photos of his fictitious hospitalization.