A Romance Built to Steal: Maya’s Story
A man she met on Facebook Dating promised love, travel, and a future together. Behind the relationship was a romance scam, fake crypto investment, and money laundering.
Photo by Obie Fernandez on Unsplash.
By Jesse Ratner
In July 2023, after years of being single, Maya decided she was ready to let someone into her life. She joined Facebook Dating cautiously, and, though she was aware of online scams, she was confident she could protect herself.
Then she met “Joseph” on Facebook Dating. He said he was a successful interior designer with homes in Seattle and New York. His business had a professional website, his social media profile appeared legitimate, and he knew restaurants near Maya’s home. Soon, they made plans to meet.
But two days before their date, Joseph said he’d secured a major contract in Dubai and had to leave immediately. He even sent a copy of the contract, airport photos, and travel videos. At this point, Maya had no reason to believe she was being scammed. In fact, she thought she’d met the man of her dreams.
“He groomed me for three months.”
A Future Carefully Constructed
During the next three months, Joseph called almost every day. He asked thoughtful questions about Maya’s goals, family, and hopes. And their relationship grew ever closer.
Maya had always wanted to travel; Joseph promised her that they would see the world together. He sent flowers and candy, and they talked about sharing a home and spending Thanksgiving with her family.
Getting to know “Joseph” felt like a dream come true, since Maya had been single for so long. His attention felt real; it felt like evidence that he really cared about her. Today, however, Maya knows that he was actually priming her for his scam. By fall, she was in love with him.
The Investment Trap
Soon, Joseph introduced Maya to a cryptocurrency trading platform called Blakey. A practiced investor, Blakey looked like platforms Maya had used before. And after what seemed like a casual suggestion from Joseph, she opened her own account and watched balances and trades change on the screen. It all seemed very legit.
The scam accelerated when Joseph “transferred” $75,000 of his own money into Maya’s account to “fund” the down payment on their future home. He also let Maya access his account and trade for him, claiming that restrictions in Dubai made it difficult to do so himself. His balance appeared substantial and the profits looked real.
Joseph then showed Maya a detailed spreadsheet and projected that, together, their investments could grow to $2 million within months. The presentation was polished, and his supposed success was visible whenever Maya signed in.
So, Maya withdrew $33,000 from her retirement account and sent it to the platform. Soon after she transferred the money to Joseph’s crypto wallet, Blakey disappeared.
A Second Route to Her Money
At about the same time, Joseph gave Maya access to an online bank account that appeared to contain $13 million. Using his credentials, she “paid” invoices for furniture, chandeliers, fixtures, and other materials for his Dubai project. Each successful payment seemed to confirm the reality of the project and his wealth.
Then, Joseph said his account had been frozen before he could pay an $850,000 shipping invoice. Suddenly, checks from his alleged business partners began arriving at Maya’s home. She deposited them, bought cryptocurrency through legitimate exchanges, and sent it to the wallet addresses Joseph supplied.
One day, a package containing $100,000 in cash arrived at her house without warning. Maya told Joseph she was uncomfortable. He brushed her concern aside and told her to split the cash between two financial institutions before converting it to crypto.
Now Joseph was using Maya as a money mule to move funds that may have come from other victims. Under constant pressure and promises of repayment, she mortgaged a paid-off property and refinanced her home.
The Story Breaks Apart
As the months passed, Maya’s doubts grew. Joseph missed Thanksgiving. Then New Year’s, his birthday, and Valentine's Day. When Maya finally persuaded him to appear on video, the face on the screen didn’t match his photographs. But when she pointed out the discrepancy, he dismissed her.
Still hoping for an explanation, Maya bought a ticket to Dubai. Two days before she left, however, Joseph claimed he’d been jailed for overstaying his visa. Maya contacted an organization that assists foreigners detained in Dubai and learned no one with his name was being held. A reverse-image search revealed that his photos belonged to a real estate executive whose identity had been stolen.
Still, Joseph continued asking for money: $50,000 for an attorney, smaller amounts for living expenses, and finally $5,000. He called the last request insignificant compared with what she had already sent. Finally, Maya realized she had been scammed and blocked him.
All told, Joseph stole approximately $300,000 from Maya.
“I did all the right things to try to get help.”
Failed Again After Reporting
During the scam, Maya kept all her transaction records, wallet addresses, recordings, screenshots, shipping labels, and spreadsheets. She reported the crime to federal and local authorities, her financial institutions, and the social media platform where she’d met him.
But the response was fragmented. Months passed without contact from an investigator. Local police initially didn’t follow up. The social media platform said profiles using the stolen photos did not violate its standards. One bank had accepted a $50,000 cash deposit without question. And after Maya disclosed the fraud, it closed her accounts.
Meta said the scammer’s dating profile didn’t violate its standards.
Then came a recovery scam. A man in an online survivor community offered a free blockchain analysis and asked for Maya's spreadsheets and wallet addresses. Fortunately, when she revealed this during her interview with Operation Shamrock, the team recognized the scam and helped her avoid even more loss.
The fact is, these criminals will use any way they can to scam victims — and they hit Maya twice. First, scammers used romance and cryptocurrency to take her money. Then, they tried to defraud her by preying on her hopes of recouping her loss from the first scam.
From Survivor to Ally
Today, Maya is rebuilding with support from a therapist, trusted friends, and a new partner. She has also become close to another survivor who understands the grief of losing money to someone who never existed.
She is sharing her records with Operation Shamrock because the same names, photographs, websites, and wallet addresses may appear in other reports. She still wonders whether anyone in government or law enforcement is putting those reports together.
Finally, Maya plans to participate in Operation Shamrock’s Train the Trainer program. She wants people to understand how romance scams, pig butchering, and cryptocurrency investment fraud unfold: slowly through trust and daily attention, then quickly once the requests for money begin.
“If I can help close the gap, if I can help other victims, if I can help other people avoid being scammed,” Maya said. “I'm all in.”
“If I can help other people avoid being scammed, I’m all in.”
Jesse Ratner is a writer from San Francisco whose daughter was a recent victim of a bank scam. His novel, The Origins of Anxiety,is available on Kindle.
At Operation Shamrock, our mission is to educate the public, mobilize collective action, and disrupt the operational networks of transnational organized criminals to prevent further harm.
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