Ronda victim of romance scam left with 53 cents after transferring fraudsters 4,100 euros

It all started with a "Hi, how are you?" on Facebook Messenger. Juan looked at the profile picture of the woman who supposedly sent him the message. "A real stunner," as he put it. He could not resist replying.

"Hi beautiful, how are you?" he wrote. He did not know it at the time, but he had just taken the first step towards falling into the hands of romance scammers.

The relationship, or what Juan believed was a relationship, began on 22 April with an intense exchange of messages. The usual questions: where are you from, what do you do for a living, etc.

"She told me she was 30, that she was a US Army soldier and that she was on a mission in Israel. She sent me loads of photos," Juan explained.

The first ones showed her in uniform. "I lied. I told her I was 45 and knocked a few years off my age [from 61]. But I consider myself young," Juan jokes, somehow having managed to keep his sense of humour despite everything.

The messages continued, accompanied by more photos. This time she appeared in a bikini and posing on beaches. "She started telling me she loved me, that she was alone and looking for a partner to have some stability in life. We talked about sex as if we were a couple," Juan said.

He thought he had finally struck lucky. "I had my doubts at first, but the photos I saw and the way she wrote to me, with such sweetness and simplicity... I thought I'd hit the jackpot."

Lili, as the "beauty" in Juan's mind called herself, was supposedly from northern California. She told him that her grandfather, father and two brothers were all in the military and that she had followed the family tradition. She also said she wanted to start a family.

How many children? "At my age, a couple would be enough. By then I was taking some of it as a bit of a joke," Juan said. But deep down, he still wanted to believe her story.

As it turned out, she was supposedly wealthy too. She told him she had savings of 2.7 million euros, that she was alone and did not want to lose the money, but had no one to leave it to. "The Lord has sent me an angel and that angel is you," the supposed Lili wrote.

That was when she suggested sending him some of the money in a cardboard box. Before she could do so, Juan had to send her a photo of his Spanish ID card, his address and his email address via WhatsApp. "That's when I got angry with her and even told her it was a scam, because I found it hard to believe."

Juan's suspicions soon faded when Lili, determined to keep the deception going, sent him a photo of herself in uniform holding her ID card. So they carried on.

Shortly afterwards, Juan received a message from a man claiming to be a diplomat, who told him that, to receive the box containing the promised fortune, he first had to make a 2,400-euro bank transfer. Juan fell for the trap and sent the money to the account he was given.

The following day, the man contacted Juan again. This time he asked for another 3,000 euros to cover a special insurance policy. "I told him I could only transfer 1,700 euros because that was all I had left. He left me with 53 cents in my account," Juan said.

Juan asked Lili what was going on. She told him that this was normal and that she herself had had to pay 10,700 euros to send the package. He began to doubt the story, but they continued messaging.

"I decided to play along and see how far she would go, even though by then I had realised she'd scammed me. They take advantage of people who are lonely. I was left in a terrible state, with no money, but I'm recovering now. I've got the spirit to keep moving forward," Juan explained.

Juan has reported the case at the police station in Ronda and wants the authorities to investigate it in the hope of "breaking up the gang". His aim is to recover what he lost. He has heard nothing further from the police, but Lili has continued messaging him.

She is now asking for another 8,500 euros to launder the money because it is supposedly being held at the embassy and an official needs to be bribed. She is not the only one. "Last week, another woman from France contacted me and, on the very first day we started talking, she was already asking me for 100 euros."

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