A retired teacher from Polokwane was scammed of R800 000 by a foreign boyfriend who pretended to love her and have ancestral powers. The 60-year-old woman met the man in January this year at a shopping complex and they got engaged soon after.
The man lured her into a room where he claimed to introduce her to the ancestors. “She heard a voice coming from nowhere telling her that she had been suffering for a very long time, but her suffering was over as there was an amount of R3.8 million waiting for her,” said Matimba Maluleke, the Hawks provincial spokesperson.
The man then asked her for money repeatedly to unlock her fortune, until she became suspicious and found out he had disappeared with her money. “The victim went to her lover’s rented house and she was told by the neighbours that they saw him loading his belongings into a moving truck,” Maluleke said.
The Hawks in Limpopo have warned South African women to be careful of dating scams that are targeting single, divorced, widowed, or retired women who have stable jobs, assets, or businesses.
The scammers use fake love, fake business proposals, or fake ancestral rituals to defraud their victims of their money and property. “The potential victims particularly well-to-do single/widowed women are advised to be careful of the scammers who come into their lives in the name of love,” Maluleke said.
He said the scammers target women who have recently divorced and acquired some assets, women who run their own businesses, and women who are widows or about to retire. “The suspect whom she was dating kept on asking for money in order to redeem her fortune (R3.8 million). The victim allegedly paid over R800 000 to the suspect until she became suspicious,” Maluleke said.