Gardai have issued a warning about romance scams, as Valentine's Day approaches, and warn that 70 per cent of romance fraud victims are women.
Gardai say they're working closely with Europol to disrupt the activities of romance scammers, particularly organised crime gangs who engage in this type of criminality, as well as monitoring dating sites for scams.
Detective Sergeant Michael Cryan outlines one such case:
"One example there is a 41 year old female who believed she was in contact with a well known musician, and they became romantically involved online and she was defrauded over €26,000. Obviously, it was a total fraud scam from the start. The average age of victims is about 47 to 50 years of age. As I said over 70% of them are female."
