Trial: Women cheated via dating app: Verdict for love fraud

The Munich Regional Court has sentenced a 38-year-old who admitted to meeting women through dating apps and cheating them out of a lot of money. He was sentenced to five and a half years in prison for three counts of fraud. He must also pay back 175,000 euros that he extorted from his victims. The court has ordered the confiscation of the corresponding amount.

The man had admitted to having met the women through a dating app and pretending to be in a relationship with them for a short time.

Defendant posed as a wealthy man

The learned carpenter had escaped from prison around three years ago on an open release, where he was serving time for multiple frauds. In the summer of 2022, he met the two later victims independently of each other. In court, he confessed to having pretended to be rich and to having given the women a discounted exit and telling them about sensational investments – “he spoke of twice the amount that I should get back,” his first victim testified in the witness stand. They then gave him 140,000 euros in cash. After a while, however, she only received 10,000 euros back. Another woman gave the man a total of 45,000 euros, which she never got back.

Money for life on the run

The accused confessed that he had always intended to use the money to finance his life on the run. The 38-year-old apologized to the women during the trial. He said he had seen “no other way out.” He would make “his greatest effort” to pay the money back. When asked by the court whether there was anything left of the sum, he did not want to comment.

The case is also reminiscent of the so-called Tinder scammer, who used a very similar scam to cheat women out of money. The streaming service Netflix released a documentary about the case.

© dpa-infocom, dpa:240923-930-241120/1