Man posed as U.S. soldier on Match.com and stole $500,000 from women

Officials say 37-year-old Tosin Olasemo, scammed lonely women on the dating website out of more than 500,000 dollars, according to the Daily Mail. The Nigerian–born Olasemo was living in Cardiff, Wales on a student visa.

Olasemo pretended to be an American serviceman stationed at a remote base in eastern Afghanistan where about 700 U.S. soldiers lived. He told the women on Match — some of them recently widowed– that he needed money to get back home while on leave from the Army.  To further advance his web of lies, police say Olasemo used a fake profile picture convincing the vulnerable women on the dating website, that he was U.S. Army Captain Morgan Travis.  Apparently, the fraudster didn’t realize however, that the rank on the soldier’s uniform was that of a first sergeant.

According to prosecutors, Olasemo began ‘intense online relationships’ with the women before he started asking them for small amounts of money to help pay for leave to visit them over two years. After he ‘brainwashed’ the women into believing they were in a real relationship, the money started turning into small fortune.

Some of the women asked Olasemo to talk to them through online video services, but prosecutors say he would tell them he couldn’t send live video of himself due to security risks in Afghanistan.

His main victim was Tine Jorgensen, a recently widowed mother of two from Denmark, who reportedly made multiple payments through Western Union to assist who she thought was now her boyfriend Capt. Morgan Travis.

Shockingly though –even when she found out the man was a fraud –Jorgensen continued an online  relationship with him after Olasemo told her, “he had committed the fraud because he had borrowed money from Nigerian militants and now owed them money under pain of death.”

Prosecutors say the victim unfortunately felt an attachment to the defendant and stayed in contact for some time, sending him more money. But they say when a woman claiming to be the Danish wife of Olasemo contacted her, Jorgensen contacted police and he was arrested at his home in Cardiff.

Olasemo was sentenced to four and a half years behind bars after admitting to 12 counts of fraud. He will likely be deported after completing his sentence.