Marie was the victim of a romance scam, where an online fraudster feigns romantic intentions towards a victim, then extracts money from them.
Entrepreneur Marie met someone on Instagram who claimed to be an American businessman. She was in a fragile emotional state at the time and quickly fell under his influence. He even pitched a business idea to her and eventually, asked her for money. Marie made several transfers, for sums that she never got back. She had fallen victim to an increasingly common type of online fraud: a romance scam. Many victims are so ashamed of having been tricked that they don’t report the crime. Some even suffer severe emotional fallout.
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But Marie decided to fight back. She turned the tables on her scammer, tracking him down and eventually taking him to court – in Nigeria. The Nigerian scammer also deceived other women. Marie went to the Nigerian capital, Abuja, in search of justice.
