Six years in prison for the dating website scammer who drove a young man with Asperger's to suicide

BarcelonaYeah Only 2.26% of cyber fraud complaints end up in court.Even fewer cases result in a conviction. In fact, this is the first time the prosecution has secured a six-year prison sentence for the man who posed as a woman on dating websites to deceive other men and who obtained nearly €27,000 from six victims. He focused primarily on boys with vulnerable profilesLike Àlex, who had Asperger's syndrome and was nearing thirty when he encountered the con artist in October 2021. After "obsessive and repetitive" intimidation, the pressure "led" him to suicide, as acknowledged in the Barcelona Provincial Court's ruling, which ARA has obtained.

The man was registered on various dating websites pretending to be a girl who worked at a webcam sex show companyHe asked the men who contacted him to call two premium-rate numbers—both beginning with 803 and registered in his name—to help her financially. Then, he contacted the victims via WhatsApp, impersonating a company representative, and demanded more calls to the same numbers or transfers to cancel the charges or prevent the line owners—who in some cases were the victims' parents—from realizing they had been scammed. After a two-day trial at the end of October, the judges of the Third Section of the Barcelona Provincial Court have now handed down a sentence for fraud and extortion. With these deceptions, the defendant secured a monthly payment for every minute of calls made to the 803 numbers he had contracted. The ruling clarifies that the defendant did not act alone, but in coordination with other individuals who could not be identified during the investigation and who, in some cases, were the ones who made the calls and sent the messages pressuring the victims. They operated from Peru, which further complicated the investigation. In fact, the defendant was extradited to Catalonia to face trial. Besides Àlex, five other men in the case were victims of the scam and lost between €750 and €15,000.

Compensation for the family

The sentence, which can be appealed, also stipulates that the defendant must reimburse the victims for the amounts they lost, and adds €20,000 in compensation for moral damages to Àlex's family. In his case, the judges point out, the con artist's persistence lasted for days and was so intense that the young man "found no other way out" than to hand over large sums of money and then commit suicide. In fact, his last conversation with the con artist was two hours before he took his own life. The defendant was demanding, via WhatsApp, that he send more money to avoid a €6,000 penalty. He replied: "Don't worry, I'll be dead by then." In total, Àlex called the 830 number the con artist had given him for almost 24 hours, adding €2,400 to a bill that his mother, the line's owner, didn't receive until November, after her son had already died. "My paycheck disappeared, and the same thing happened in December. In the end, we were ruined," the woman said during the trial. Àlex's family, represented by lawyer Marc Foix of the Castellarnau Penalistas firm, filed a private prosecution in the case and sought an eleven-year prison sentence.