A scammer from Oriental Mindoro allegedly victimized a deaf and mute woman from Cebu province through online messaging websites and stole a total of P59,060 by pretending to be her foreigner boyfriend.| NBI-7 Photo
CEBU CITY, Philippines — A deaf woman lost P59,060 to a female scammer from Oriental Mindoro, who pretended to be a man from the United Kingdom.
The National Bureau of Investigation-Central Visayas Regional Office (NBI CEVRO or NBI-7) said in a statement that the victim, “Lisa,” made the complaint against a woman who posed as a foreigner and became her boyfriend through a social media website.
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Deaf woman from Cebu Province
According to NBI-7, the victim is completely deaf and works as a certified teacher of sign language.
It added that the alleged victim is from Cebu province and comes from a family of political scions.
The suspect introduced herself to the victim through chat as “Tylor from UK,” who is a half-Malaysian Chinese man with a British dad, and used the picture of a Korean celebrity as profile picture of the account.
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How suspect scammed victim
NBI-7, in the statement, identified the suspect as Anna Lou Agito, a resident of Aurora Boulevard, Calapan, Oriental Mindoro.
Through messages online, the suspect, using the nickname “Chan,” continued to communicate with the victim under false pretenses that she was a man and wooed her until they entered a romantic relationship in April 3, 2023.
The suspect allegedly told Lisa that she, as Tylor, was sick and needed a doctor. Then the suspect asked for Lisa to financially support “him” at the time because “he” had no money.
The victim who was in love with her supposed boyfriend, sent the suspect a total amount of P59,060 through money transfer from April 8-11, 2023.
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Deaf woman exploited
Satisfied with the outcome of her lie, the suspect continued to exploit the victim and made her believe that they were going to get married when “he” would come to visit her in the Philippines.
According to NBI-7, the suspect was found talking about marriage during one of their online conversations.
“Once my birthday is over and you buy me the Iphone 12 pro…and I will come to Philippines and get married to you we will live together as a family…what do you think,” it read.
Another message from the suspect read, “Trust me I’m gonna marry you. I’ve gotten the wedding ring already.”
However, the suspect kept on pressuring Lisa to give money and asked her to find a job, ask money from family, or pawn jewelry so that she could send money to her lover.
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Suspect grow distant, victim depressed
When the victim was unable to meet the demands, the suspect made her explain why she could not come up with the amount but the victim remained clueless to the motive behind it.
NBI-7 said that the suspect started to be distant with Lisa because of this, which made her depressed.
The victim’s behavior caught the attention of her mother who did her own investigation and found out that her daughter was a victim of a scam.
The mother took screenshots of Lisa and Chan’s conversations and details of the money transfer made to the account under the real name of the suspect and gave it to the authorities.
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Mother sought NBI’s help
On May 29, 2023, they went to the office of the NBI CEVRO to ask for help regarding the incident.
And on Tuesday, August 8, two counts for violation of Section 2 of Article 315 of the Revised Penal Code in relation to Section 6 of Republic Act 10175 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 were filed by NBI-7 with the Office of the Provincial Prosecutor against the suspect.
NBI-7 said that the suspect was very elusive, but their counterparts in MIMAROPA (Mindoro Oriental & Occidental, Marinduque, Romblon, and Palawan) region have tried to serve a subpoena.
Romance scams
NBI-7 said that cases of romance scams in Central Visayas had been common in recent times with an estimate of at least two complaints per week and the biggest one involving around P3,000,000.
However, to counter this, the NBI-7 conducts information drives or awareness campaign.
NBI-7 also advised the public to be careful when expressing heartbreak on the internet especially to strangers you only know online.
“Do not announce your loneliness online…when your online bf/gf you have never met in person starts to ask for money it means you are about to be scammed. Block them. Change your privacy settings & heal your broken heart,” the agency said.
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