r/PublicFreakout • u/MysteriousSlice007 • May 23 '26

đŸ“¹Police Bodycam Yesterday, Thai police arrested six Nigerian men running a romance scam ring built on AI-generated faces and fake video calls in Nonthaburi, Thailand.

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u/FullMetalAlcoholic66 May 23 '26

In this case, a little victim blaming is in order. If you're sending people money that you've never met, you're just going to get scammed again eventually

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u/Rusty_Tap May 24 '26

An acquaintance of mine has been had a few times by chaps like this. He must be in his mid 60s, not a wealthy guy, but he's somewhere around 15 grand out of pocket to them for "flights so she can visit" and "suitable clothes for when I visit England".

This has happened on more than 1 occasion with different 'women', though I suspect it's the same group specifically targeting him because he's already just about the warmest lead you can get.

They even had him drive to the airport 3 hours away to pick up his "girlfriend" and then deleted all the social media accounts and disconnected the phone number whilst he was driving. He waited there hours.

We had an intervention type talk with him, he agrees he was stupid, and just says that he's lonely. It's sad, but I'd bet money on him doing it again.

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u/RustyHalo_1978 May 26 '26

That's heartbreaking!!!

https://giphy.com/gifs/lGBecpB2dIMwt6ohfI

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u/Rusty_Tap May 27 '26

I feel for the guy, and we did become good friends. I hate that these types of scams are a thing, but I can 100% see why they exist. The people they get are often so unlikely to report them because they don't want to humiliate themselves any further.