The Ukraine is a popular destination for men looking for love. Thousands of foreigners search for a romantic partner in this country via the internet, but not all of the stories end well. In fact, Ukraine is one of the riskiest countries for romance and marriage fraud in the whole world.

According to a recent publication, only in the U.K. romance scam cases rose by 64% in the first half of 2019 compared with the same period a year earlier. Statistics show that far from decreasing, romance scam continues to grow and to “employ” more women, which is something Ukrainians have taken advantage of.  It is a thriving business in the Ukraine, and very profitable.

Eastern Europeans are mastering fraud by pretending to be attractive females or gay men in the search for a foreign partner. In the past, romance scammers used to steal photos from attractive people from the internet and make up an identity based on those photos. However, today’s landscape is different, especially in Eastern Europe. Attractive women and men are being hired to in fact show their faces, appear on photos, videos and even meet their victims in person, but their identities are false and their intentions are bad.  There is often only one goal in mind – stealing your money.

Private investigators in the Ukraine say the internet scamming business has been managed by powerful mafia rings in the country, and their resources are enough to make this a more complex, organized and structured crime. They have extensive manuals for endearment and abuse, templates on how to approach a victim and keep them enticed, images taken from professional models who are in on the scam, videos of the same young ladies, phone centers who will make a call to anyone, and resources and techniques to cover their tracks and disappear money that is sent by innocent victims.

The worst part is that Ukraine romance fraud is not an isolated enterprise. The scammers running this business also appear to be closely associated with crimes involving abuse and human trafficking, which takes this situation to another level.

Busting the bad Juliets and Romance Scammers

If busting a scammer was an easy thing to do, we would not see such unbelievable losses every year. The greatest problem that potential victims face is that they are unaware of the complexity of the scheme and think they will be able to spot a criminal, but that is not how it usually happens.

Uncovering a Ukraine romance fraudster requires the professional work of a local private investigator, with access to crucial information and knowledge of where to find evidence and how to get it. Revealing a scammer or a gold digger in the Ukraine is not an easy task.

Kiev and Odessa are hotspots for scammers, but they could be located anywhere else in the Ukraine. Instead of focusing in trying to find red flags, the advice is to hire an online dating verification as soon as people start to feel an interest for that person they met online. The sooner a potential victim knows the truth, the less possibilities there are of falling victim, losing time and money, and the less profit these criminals will have.  The sooner you have your online partner verified the better.

Being cautious is not only a way to protect yourself, it is a smart way to protect others too by cutting criminals profits. Hire a professional to conduct a background check investigation in Russia or Ukraine now and avoid yourself and other from the troubles of romance fraud!

C. Wright
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