An 82-year-old grandfather committed suicide after losing his life savings to cruel scammers posing as a mystery love interest on Facebook.
Dennis Jones fell victim to a con known as ‘pig butchering’ whereby fraudsters ‘fatten’ their victims up with a fake online romance before encouraging them to invest in bogus cryptocurrency schemes.
Jones’ family said he died ’embarrassed and ashamed’ on March 4 after becoming infatuated with the woman called ‘Jessica’ – despite never meeting her.
Heartbreaking final messages shared by his children reveal the loving father and grandfather, from Maryland, had become increasingly depressed about his financial losses.
He wrote in one exchange to ‘Jessica’: ‘I have been having dark thoughts about my life and it being over. Certainly, it looks like my financial life is done. Bankruptcy, legal and all that BS. It will be very painful and I’m not sure I can stand it.’
It comes as more and more Americans fall victim to the cruel con, thought to be predominantly run by Chinese gangs. Earlier this year, the Secret Service said it was seeing a ‘ton’ of cases.
Devastated children Matt Jones and Adrianne Gruner said they had planned to meet with their dad on the day he died to help him recover after he confided in them about the scam. Adrianne added he was supposed to move in with her family on her farm in Virginia to rebuild his life.
Matt was stunned to see cops show up at his door an hour after their planned meeting informing him Jones had taken his own life. The family assumed he was out for a long run – something he loved to do.
‘Our father was, from the day I was born until six months ago, always a positive, happy person,’ he told CNN. ‘This was literally the only thing in his life that had happened, to where it changed him, and it just crushed him.’
So-called ‘pig butcherers’ operate on various social media, dating and messaging sites such as Facebook, Tinder, WhatsApp and LinkedIn – among others.
After entering their lives and making victims like Jones comfortable, the scammers convince them to invest in fraudulent cryptocurrency schemes and even ‘phantom properties’ that don’t exist.
In messages shared by the family, Jones told ‘Jessica’ that he would ‘have 9000 in my trust wallet by Saturday.’
‘Transferring 2500 per day into uphold and had 1525 in it. So, 4000 in it now 65000 tomorrow and 9000 Saturday.’
‘Jessica’ replied: ‘Is there any limit on transferring to wallet now?’
In another message to ‘Jessica’, Dennis told her how guilty he felt for ‘betraying his family’ by giving up all of his money.
‘He’s saying, ‘these are basically evil people, I did not know such evil people existed” Jones wrote in a message that Matt read.
‘The ultimate pain here is that I’ve betrayed my family’s trust, this is unbearable,’ he added.
Despite all of the pain her father endured, Adrianne believes that he truly cared for ‘Jessica’.
‘I do believe he loved the person that he believed was behind that profile,’ she said.
Matt added he knew something was off once he was told how his father died.
‘As soon as I found out that it was a suicide, I was 100% sure that it was the scam,’ he told CNN.
Dennis loved volunteering, sailing, photography, and playing the guitar, according to his obituary.
I’ve never really understood why someone would send money to someone they’ve never met, but these individuals prey on the weak and give them hope, stealing their money under the pretence that they want to be with them and are in love.
The old and fragile are less knowledgeable about computer and technological problems and are unaware of what to look for. It’s astonishing how smart fraudsters are becoming, and adult children should talk to their elderly parents about the risks associated with online scammers.
Loneliness drives people to great lengths and there have been a lot of people that have been scammed out of tens of thousands of pounds.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 