A few weeks ago, a man from Pas-de-Calais killed his partner, to join his mistress he met on Facebook. He was actually manipulated into a “grazer”. Who are these scammers from West Africa trying to extract money on the Internet, and how do they operate? Explanations from divisional commissioner Sophie Robert, head of the brigade for the repression of clever delinquency at the direction of the Paris judicial police.
franceinfo: Can you tell us what a “grazer” is? ?
Sophie Robert: A “grazer” is a crook. It is a person who will contact a victim often through social networks, dating sites, who will seduce her, make her fall in love with him in order to extract money from her. The particularity is that the scammer and the victim will never actually meet, because the scammer is not in France. Everything will happen on the Internet or on social networks. The victim will really believe in a real romantic relationship between them and the scammer; and to extract money from him, he will each time invent reasons such as illness, blocked inheritance, blocked money, children’s education and need for money. And so the victim will send him money.
These “grazers”, they all live abroad ?
Mostly yes. They are often in African countries: Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Benin… but are never on French territory.
Do we have a typical victim profile?
These scams can affect any type of social class. Most of us still have people who are isolated, who are alone, after a breakup for example. They find themselves quite isolated and are therefore more inclined to be approached by a person who will be interested in them. It is above all a psychological profile of a single person.
This can be surprising, sometimes we have a case where we say to ourselves that it’s impossible to be fooled like that. But in fact, scammers have an extremely well-rehearsed speech. What we call “unpacking it”, that is to say a speech that adapts to the person they have in front of them, because behind there is manipulation, there is of being placed under control. And we have a victim who really believes in this romantic relationship and who is really very in love with a person she has never seen.
“It’s a scam that has existed for a very long time, but which developed during the various confinements during Covid. Many people found themselves isolated at that time, alone at home.”
Commissioner Sophie Robertat franceinfo
It was during the crisis that we saw the emergence and acceleration of scams via the Internet. So scams, romance frauds, also developed on this occasion.
How significant are the damages? ?
The damages can be very high: tens of thousands of euros, even hundreds, or more than a million euros. This can be very, very high. The grazer, when he hooks the victim, will extract as much money as he can. Some victims take out consumer loans to pay the money back to the person in front of them, they put all their savings into it. This can lead to very difficult situations, when the victim realizes that they have been defrauded. And we have even seen that some victims subsequently fell into depression. Some committed suicide.
How do you fight against this form of crime? ?
It’s very difficult. We must go through prevention because in fact scammers use concealment techniques, even on the Internet: they use VPNs to hide their IP address, they use telephone numbers called “on-off” to display telephone numbers of French origin for payment of funds. They go through “mules”, that is to say individuals who then transfer the funds to them, or sometimes even through other victims who transfer the funds to them to hide the route of the money. So technically, it’s difficult to identify them and if we manage to follow these flows or identify an IP address, often it’s abroad. We must go through international judicial cooperation which, sometimes with these countries, is long or difficult.
Scammers in Ivory Coast are very difficult to stop. In France there is always the risk of being identified and arrested, whereas abroad, they are a little more sheltered. There is a community that has been created, particularly in Ivory Coast. We even see over-fraud, where a victim who has been defrauded through love fraud, for example, will be contacted by another group of crooks who will pose as police officers and who, to carry out investigations or open an investigation, will ask for money. And so the victim is defrauded twice by two different teams.
What advice to avoid these scams?
Be wary of meeting on the Internet, try as much as possible to meet physically. Also raise awareness among those around these people. Because in fact, in the majority of cases of fraud, it is relatives who notify the police.
“Often victims, even when they realize that they have been defrauded, do not file a complaint because they are ashamed of what happened, of having been deceived. We must immediately file a complaint to have a chance of recovering the funds.”
Commissioner Sophie Robertat franceinfo
Because one of our priorities in scams, even when we cannot identify or arrest the scammers, is to recover the money. This is possible if we manage to intervene very shortly after the funds are disbursed. This is not always possible, but by contacting the bank within 24 hours there is a chance of recovering the funds.
There is also the possibility of filing a complaint online. ?
Yes, since March 2022 you can file a complaint online on the Thésée platform. It is the first online complaint system which was set up by the National Directorate of the Judicial Police, and the General Directorate of the National Police. There is a scam aspect to the romance. After filing a complaint, the victim will be contacted by an operator. Behind it, there is software that allows you to make connections between the different complaints to find out if you are not dealing with the same scammer, the same team. We can collect and reconcile all complaints, to refer them to a police department.
