A woman from the North Shore of Montreal lost everything at the hands of a young African who declared his love for her. The forty-year-old kept all the evidence of this love scam which led her “to hell».
• Read also: Love fraud: a scammer with multiple false identities was convicted of cheating lonely romantics out of more than $230,000
Nadia Larivée did not have a luxurious lifestyle when she met Ousmane Mbaye on the online platform of Fortnite. She lived in a small apartment on the North Shore of Montreal and worked two jobs to make ends meet.
“It happened without me realizing it. We were in communication 24 hours a day,” she told the show I broadcast on TVA this evening, at 8 p.m.
Nadia Larivee
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When she met the 32-year-old Senegalese online, Nadia had just been diagnosed with depression.
“For me he was an angel. For me he was a very kind, very attentive person and he told me: ‘I’m coming to study in Quebec for the month of April,'” she adds, speaking of the 14-year-old man. years his junior.
- Listen to the interview with François Renaud, psychotherapist and sexologist on Alexandre Dubé’s microphone via
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She borrows from her mother
The woman then abandoned herself body and soul in this long-distance relationship, to the point of truly considering the young man as her “spouse”. It was at this moment that he began to exert real psychological control over her by constantly asking her for sums of money.
“I gave you everything I had left in my account. I borrowed from my mother again…I just want to be buried, I’m a piece of shit,” read a distressed text message she sent to him.
Nadia Larivee
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“I wanted to die”
Nadia Larivée transferred nearly $4,000 to the young man from Dakar.
“I wanted to die there, I couldn’t handle the situation any longer. I could no longer see how I was going to get out of it.”
The testimony of Mme Larivée will be broadcast on Friday evening, with that of two other Quebec victims of love scams.
Nadia Larivée lost everything at the hands of a young African who declared his love for her. The forty-year-old kept all the evidence of this love scam which led her “to hell”. SCREENSHOT
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Found in Senegal
Our investigation office went to Dakar, Senegal, and found Ousmane Mbaye in Yoff, one of the communes of the city of 1.5 million inhabitants.
“I didn’t know it was going to put her in such a situation!” the thirty-year-old defended himself. “As soon as my situation develops, it will be my priority,” he promised us.
At the time of writing, Ousmane Mbaye had still not reimbursed Nadia Larivée.
According to several Western governments, West Africa is known to host several scammers specializing in romance fraud.
Victims educated but vulnerable
In 2023, Canadians lost $50M to the masters of romance scams, according to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Center.
Who are their victims? It was difficult to know until today, but a duo of researchers from the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières provides answers after conducting the first study on the subject in the country.
After looking at the cases of 17 people who lost large sums of money, researchers draw conclusions that help debunk certain myths about victims of this type of online fraud.
In general, the victims had…
- Good knowledge of digital tools;
- A good level of education;
- A good capacity for introspection;
- A certain level of emotional vulnerability following a breakup or bereavement;
- Financial losses of $1,000 to $300,000 per person.