GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Over the last several years, "romance scams" have become much more common, where people will use dating profiles or intimate relationships to try and scam people out of their money.
It happens all over the world, but for one Grand Rapids man, he was scamming women around the world, and he didn't even know it—his picture was being used on fake accounts.
13 ON YOUR SIDE Reporter Keely Lovern spent weeks digging into this international story that has connections in West Michigan, Texas, Australia and even to the FBI.
"This is the epitome of catfishing," said Stella Albarez.
STELLA
In 2019, Stella Albarez was recently divorced, and joined a dating app to get back out there. That's where the San Antonio native met a man in his 50s named Henry Lloyd Wright, who said he was an architect from Austin.
"It was pretty surface-level for the whole time," said Albarez. "Nothing like heavy romance, but a little flirty, and it didn't take long."
They communicated for a few weeks, but the whole time, Albarez said she had a feeling something wasn't right.
"There were some things that were kind of alerting," she said, "and clued me in a little bit that maybe this wasn't real."
For starters, he wouldn't meet her in person or video chat, and always had excuses as to why.
"I asked to talk on the phone and he told me that was fine, but that he had an accent because of his family heritage," she said. "It sounded middle eastern to me."
He also said he lost his phone and therefore, got a new phone number, and sent Albarez a picture of his passport, which she remembered thinking was odd.
"You've got to listen to your gut, and that's what I did, thinking I've got to check this guy out," she said.
She did a reverse-search of 'Henry's' pictures.
"And that's when I found the real Mark," she remembered.
MARK
Henry Lloyd Wright was actually a man living in Grand Rapids named Mark Saltzman.
Albarez reached out to Saltzman on LinkedIn, telling him someone had been using his pictures.
He had no idea.
"It was a profile of my face on these dating apps," Saltzman said, "with several pictures of me that had been screenshotted and taken from my Facebook profile."
Saltzman reached out to 'Henry Lloyd Wright' on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, trying to get them to delete the fake profiles, but he was immediately blocked. From there, he didn't know what else he or Albarez could do.
Little did he know, a woman across the world was also falling for him, his face that is. And he wouldn't find out until years later, when he got an email from a woman in Australia.
"ALICE"
"When I contacted Mark this October and he responded back, it was just verification that I had been a fool," said the woman from Australia, who asked to remain anonymous.
For this story, we'll call her Alice.
Alice had been talking to, and in a relationship with Henry Lloyd Wright for nearly three years.
"Sending me all kinds of things like, 'you're a beautiful lady,' sending me poems, sending me songs, and saying how much he loved me very quickly," Alice remembered. "At one point he even gave the indication that when we met, we would marry."
Alice too, though, had some feelings that 'Henry' wasn't who he said he was.
"He didn't have an American accent, which should have been an indication since he claimed to be from Texas," said Alice.
"So then I thought I'd be responsible and ask for some identification, so he sent me a picture of the passport," she added.
Turns out, just like the one sent to Albarez, the passport was fake.
"I really didn't realize how fake passports could be made up," Alice admitted.
And similarly to Albarez, 'Henry' always had an excuse for why he couldn't meet her in person.
"I asked if I could phone him with the camera and he always said his camera was broken," Alice laughed. "That should have been another sign."
"I had questioned him about different things and about his true identity," she added. "And he got quite angry with me."
But unlike Albarez, Alice had lost a lot more than just her time.
"I reckon it's probably up to $70,000 in Australia," Alice said.
Over the years they spoke, Alice gave who she thought was 'Henry', what totaled nearly more than $45,000 U.S. dollars, drawing even from her retirement fund. And it was all sent via cryptocurrency.
"I sold some jewelry, and I had savings in a safe that I sent over as well," said Alice.
'Henry' told her so many lies in order to get money. The first time, he told Alice that his friend was in the hospital and he needed money because him and his wife didn't have health insurance and couldn't afford it.
"So me being a sucker, I sent him money for that," said Alice.
Another time, he told her that he was now the one in the hospital with appendicitis, and he needed money for the medical bills because he didn't have any insurance. Alice said she thought that was strange because he claimed to own his own construction business in Texas.
She explained that she even contacted the hospital where 'Henry' said he was, and they had no record of his admission.
"I still sent him the money, like a fool," she said.
Over the years, 'Henry' told Alice so many different lies, and it seemed to her like they would just get bigger and bigger and adding on to each other.
One of the stories he told her, was that he was traveling overseas and had a contract for construction work in Saudi Arabia.
"He'd started a contract there, and then all of a sudden he was in trouble with the authorities because something went wrong," Alice explained. "So then he asked for money to pay the Saudi people."
"He would tell me that if I didn't send the money, they could kill him because they are 'nasty' people," she added, "and it just kind of went on and on."
Another time, 'Henry' said he was thrown out of his apartment where he was staying during the contract because he hadn't paid the rent, so he was living with other people from the "construction site." When she gave him the money for that, the next story was that he couldn't afford the rent on his apartment back home in Texas. She gave him money for that, too.
"I had questioned him on whether or not he had travel or business insurance for his company," Alice said, "but he always had an answer for everything."
She also bought him airline tickets to get home because he said he didn't have the money.
"He said the funds were there, but he had to prove something to the bank with $5,000-$7,000 before they would release his funds," Alice remembered.
"There's just so many stories in there that are just mind-boggling," she added.
It wasn't until years into their relationship that she found out that 'Henry', was actually Mark.
"And I thought, oh Jesus, what's going on here," she said.
Alice had joined a Facebook group out of Austin, Texas, that was all about exposing scammers. She put 'Henry's' photo and information in there, and it wasn't long before a member helped her do some research.
"They told me there wasn't a footprint of Henry anywhere," she said, "and that the property records for his business weren't real."
That's when she too did a reverse-search of 'Henry's' pictures, and found Mark Saltzman.
"I felt so betrayed and ashamed of myself that I'd fallen for a scammer," Alice said. "And that I'd parted with so much money."
Alice gave 13 ON YOUR SIDE reporter Keely Lovern the phone number she used to message 'Henry' on WhatsApp. Keely called the number several times, but never got an answer. When she texted the number asking for 'Henry,' they responded asking for her to stop calling and texting.
MARK
Alice met Mark over video chat shortly after she had emailed him to make him aware of the scam.
"She was really angry, and sad," he said, "because there is an element of grief."
"She spent three years on this person, lost money, time, and all while thinking it was me," he added, "so I just had a lot of compassion for her."
And this all happened several years after he met Stella Albarez, who too had been tricked with his pictures.
"I think we have to be cautious when it comes to money, and our heart."
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
"It's unfortunately all too common," said Pete Ellis, a Senior Supervisory Resident Agent for the FBI.
He said these types of 'romance scams' have become more prevalent over the last decade, and it happens all over the country, and the world.
Agent Ellis has been with the FBI for more than 17 years. He now works out of the Grand Rapids office, which is a satellite for the Detroit FBI office.
"We're getting victims from all different walks of life that are calling and reporting these types of things," he said, "and not only to us, but local law enforcement agencies take these reports as well."
Ellis said a lot of times, these scams originate on online dating apps, or online in general.
"A lot of times, these scammers will look to target individuals who are lonely, or looking for companionship," he said. "Then they'll start grooming them, talk about meeting up with them, and try to develop a good relationship, always with that promise of meeting up, and may even offer up marriage."
According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, older adults reportedly lost nearly $139 million in romance scams in 2020. Total reported losses to romance scams were higher than any other scam reported to the Federal Trade Commission that year. Also in 2020, people reported losing $304 million to romance scams – nine times higher than it was five years prior.
"And at some point, they're going to try to persuade them to give them money," Ellis added. "A lot of times we'll see that they say it's for legal fees they've got problems with, or that they've got medical fees for themselves or family members."
"I've seen it up to $2 to 5 million dollars that people have lost in life savings."
Ellis explained that he's seen victims of all ages, but that the elderly are unfortunately targeted most often.
"They're trusting, and they aren't as aware of a lot of the scams that are out there," he said.
Ellis said the scammers are usually a group of people working overseas.
"There are groups out of multiple different countries," he explained. "A lot in Africa, and we've seen them in India."
"It really doesn't take a lot of sophistication to do these," Ellis said. "They get a computer, and they teach each other how to do this."
Ellis explained that these "scammers" will doctor pictures, and take others' pictures as they did with Mark Saltzman's.
"It's easy to doctor things online," Ellis said, "and even though it doesn't take a lot of sophistication, the problem is that there's a lot of them doing this, and they're good at getting money from victims."
Ellis also shared some advice, and things to look out for if you think you may be involved in a scam.
"If they're asking for money, it is a scam," he said, "and if it seems too good to be true, unfortunately it probably is."
Ellis also said that if you are talking to someone online, it is always best to try and meet them in person. If the other person always finds excuses not to or doesn't meet you face-to-face, Ellis described that as a "big red flag."
"If it does happen to you, or you feel like you're being scammed, don't feel like you can't talk to somebody," he added. "Talk to your family members, call the local police, or the FBI."
"We're out here, and we're here to help."
Ellis said that if you have been scammed, it's important to reach out to law enforcement as quickly as possible.
"If someone's been scammed and they sent money, especially a wire transfer, if we can catch it early enough, we could actually stop a majority of those transferred funds from going through," explained Ellis. "We have a team back at headquarters that can freeze those funds."
The other important part of reporting these types of scams, is having them documented for authorities to keep track of.
"The more people that tell us about this and report it, we can put a push on it, and start locating and identifying these individuals," Ellis said.
"Financial crimes are a very big priority for us," added Ellis. "We look at it as an investigation, and there's a lot of things we can do."
"It doesn't matter where it takes us, even if that's overseas."
And the last thing he wants the public to know is, "don't be embarrassed or ashamed," Ellis said. "Just understand that it happens to a lot of people, and people from all walks of life."
To report an online scam, click here, or go to ic3.gov.
For a full list of different types of scams you could encounter, click here or go to FBI.gov.
MOVING FORWARD
Although it wasn't a friendship any of them could have expected, Mark, Stella, and Alice were all brought together by a series of crazy circumstances. Now, they wanted to share their stories, each for their own reason.
"Because I was a victim, I wanted to share my story," said Alice. "I should've trusted my gut feeling, and I want others to know that when you feel that something is just not right, it most likely isn't."
Stella Albarez echoed those sentiments.
"If you sense that something's not quite right, you're probably right," Albarez said. "Women have incredible instincts."
"Hopefully this will bring a little bit more awareness to even just watching who you're talking to and what you're saying," she added. "Be selective, and if they don't want to talk to you on video or see you, or they give excuses, there may be a reason."
Albarez said she too hopes that this will help other people not fall victim to these types of scams, and share with people it has happened to that they are not alone.
"My loss wasn't anything near like what [Alice] had to endure, and I feel bad for her," said Albarez. "I don't think it was a mistake, I think it was an honest attempt to help someone."
"To me it's just shameful that somebody gets taken advantage of like that, because the foundation of any relationship is trust," she added, "and when that's violated, it's got to be devastating."
And for Mark Saltzman, the unsuspecting man whose face was drawing these women in, is focused too on raising awareness, and making sure that victims are not shamed.
"I don't want anyone to think these women are any less for falling for this," he said. "We've all followed our heart to a place where we shouldn't have gone."
"And that's why these women fell for this," he added. "They wanted love, and someone preyed on that."
Again, if you or someone you know has been scammed, or you think you might be the victim of a scam, you can report it to the FBI by going to FBI.gov or to the Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov. You can also call the Detroit field office 24/7 at (313) 965-2323.
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