Romance scammer swindled nearly £350,000 from two women using fake identities

A romance fraudster used fake identities and a series of elaborate lies to swindle hundreds of thousands of pounds out of two women, a court heard.

Latif Kasule, 32, called himself ‘James Fischer’ and spent months gaining the trust of one woman, who was duped into sending him more than £320,000.

She started speaking to ‘Fischer’ online before they exchanged phone numbers to continue chatting on WhatsApp.

They spoke on the phone every day and the victim was led to believe ‘Fischer’ worked as a telecommunications manager who sourced contracts overseas.

Kasule’s first request for money came when ‘Fischer’ claimed to have broken his laptop on a business trip and could not purchase a new one.

He asked the victim to send three laptops to the address of a ‘colleague’ in west London, but it was actually Kasule’s home in Uxbridge. Once he had the laptops, Kasule sent them to Ghana.

The victim also sent £2,500 to an account held in Kasule’s name. Fortunately, the bank identified the account as likely to be laundering funds and the money was returned to the victim.

This offence only came to light after a family member contacted the police to raise concerns about the payments.

Kasule also posed as a man named ‘Ethan Bergmann’ who swindled a woman he met on a dating site out of £25,000.

After a few months of chatting, the woman and ‘Bergmann’ started speaking via email before switching to a messaging app.

‘Bergmann’ claimed to work on oil rigs around the world and spoke to the victim every day mainly through messages but also on video and audio calls.

During the exchanges, ‘Bergmann’ asked the victim to send him money via agents, one of whom was Kasule.

The victim sent money to two separate bank accounts held in different names with different banks.

But it later emerged both accounts were under Kasule’s control.

He directly received £2,680 from the victim and the money was subsequently forwarded onto an associate in Ghana.

The online relationship continued until ‘Bergmann’ died from Covid-19 in March 2020, at which point the victim contacted the police.

Kasule was found guilty of seven counts of money laundering at Caernarfon Crown Court and jailed for 12 months.

Detective Constable Paul Ingram said: ‘To put it simply, romance fraud is a form of online grooming.

‘Victims are often left completely devastated at both the financial and emotional impact of this crime, so much so that they are apprehensive about speaking to others about it.

‘It is people like Kasule who enable these offences to take place, with a complete disregard for the impact it has on the victims.

‘City of London Police has worked closely with colleagues in North Wales Police and other law enforcement agencies throughout the investigation to identify Kasule.

‘The sentence handed down proves that romance fraud is a serious crime and those involved in this terrible crime will be found and brought to justice.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.