Romantic African Fraudster Who Stole £800,000 From Widows Caught

Move aside Nigerian fraudsters! An online dating fraudster from Ghana who had scammed lonely British £800,000 has been caught. Maurice Asola Fadola charmed his victims into sending him cash to fund his luxury gold-plated mansion.

Maurice had posed as an American major general to charm and deceive his ladies , he was sending flowers on their birthdays and bombarding them with flattering messages and poetry.

Later, he would tell these ladies that he was in some sort of financial difficulty and ask the often widowed pensioners to send cash, when they do he used to pay for a lavish gold-plated mansion in his home country.

After almost three years of heartache and accusations, he has now been sentenced in Ghana to five years in prison and ordered to repay his victims in full.

One victim, 71-year-old grandmother Katherine Clark from Southsea, Hampshire, travelled to Ghana to give evidence against Fadola.

She had lost her husband 30 years previously and was charmed by the conman, who this time claimed to be a British builder named Bruce living in London. 

She said: "He made feel great, he made me feel wanted and that he was genuine. It was a nice feeling."

He soon told Ms Clark he was moving to Ghana and encouraged her to send money to him to invest in a mining company.
She even travelled to the West African country at one point to meet 'Bruce' and encountered Fadola - who was pretending to be Bruce's driver.

He took her to Fadola's luxury marble-clad mansion, showed her a case of gold to prove the investment was genuine and then said Bruce was in prison and needed her money for bail.

"He’d send me poetry. It sounds silly now but we were in love."