Coming up.

She was actually contacted by another person out in Utah, and that person tells her that she has her $38,000 sitting in her bank account.

For Vault Studios, I'm Reid Redmond. You're listening to The Daily Crime. A February report from the FTC revealed more people than ever are falling prey to romance scammers,

losing 547 million in 2021 alone.

The scammers draw people in using fake pictures. A little over a year ago,

a woman from Duluth, Georgia, met a man online who called himself David Smart. This scammer,

David Smart, was able to create a relationship. The woman told police that she developed a

friendship with Smart. But as it turns out, all was not as it seemed.

They have multiple victims and they're using multiple bank accounts to funnel money from one victim

to the next. Liza Lucas is a reporter for 11 alive in Atlanta. Liza, thanks for being here.

Thanks so much for having me.

So, Liza, this story all starts when a woman from Duluth, Georgia, meets a man online.

How did they end up connecting?

Well, like so many romances, friendships these days, they went online.

And I have to say, there's not a whole lot of details in terms of which site or the timing, but we know they corresponded about a year and a half. And for all intensive

purposes, this woman is in her 70s. And basically, she met this man online who referred to himself

as David Smart. What kinds of details did this man, David Smart, tell this woman about himself?

Police say they were speaking for about a year, year and a half in length, and what this woman,

this victim out of Duluth, understood him to be, was a general in the U.S. military, off,

far away, serving in Afghanistan.

So they never met in person.

This was all an online correspondence,

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