nbc.com – By Ken Dilanian i- She called herself Anna, and she reached out to Barry May over social media.
“It was on Facebook, was an Asian woman that supposedly lived in New York, on Fifth Avenue,” he said. “And so we just started chatting.”
Soon, he said, Anna was sending explicit photos. May, a divorced and retired insurance adjuster living in Mississippi, was smitten. She told him they could be together, but first she needed a favor.
Her aunt, she said, was holding $3 million of her money. She needed May to invest in cryptocurrency, so her aunt “would release that money to her and then she could come to me and we could get married.”
She promised huge returns. He sold property and liquidated his 401(k), sending the woman more than $500,000 — his life savings. An account on a website appeared to show his holdings.
He was about take out a loan to send more, until one day he got a call from an FBI agent. “They said this is a major fraud situation, and I’m not the only one.”