AFTER years of desperately wanting to settle down, Kirat Assi was convinced she’d found the perfect man when she fell head over heels for a handsome heart doctor.
Bobby Jandu was well-off, smart, attentive and keen to introduce her to friends and family online and often messaged her mum, telling her how much Kirat meant to him.
They spent hours ‘talking’ on Skype, often falling asleep with the line open.
“I felt loved unconditionally,” says Kirat, 44.
There was just one problem – they had never actually met.
Bobby claimed he was in witness protection in America after being shot six times during a visit to Kenya in November 2013 over a business deal gone wrong.
A subsequent ‘stroke’ left him part-paralysed and unable to talk properly and, when a mutual Facebook friend sent Kirat a haunting image of Bobby lying in a bed, hooked up to wires and surrounded by tubes, she vowed to wait for him.
Except her version of ‘Bobby’ never existed.
Neither did his circle of 60 close friends and cousins on Facebook who regularly sent Kirat messages.
It was all a sick fantasy engineered by her female cousin Simran Bhogal, who even got Kirat to engage in a sexual side to the relationship which went on for almost ten years.
It was only when Kirat finally grew suspicious and knocked on the door of the real Bobby Jandu that she realised he had no idea who she was.
His identity had been hijacked in a twisted attempt to control every aspect of her life.
Now, in a new Netflix documentary, to air this coming week, Kirat tells how she was sucked into the longest and most complex catfish scam in the world.
It’s a shocking saga with more twists and turns than a garden hose.
The real Bobby Jandu tells producers how he was left open-mouthed when Kirat, of West London, knocked on his front door insisting they were in the midst of an affair.
He said: “My wife said ‘who is this?’ and I said ‘I’ve no idea who this lady is, I’ve never spoken to her in my life’.
“She (Kirat) looks right at me and says ‘liar, why are you saying this?’”
The whole story unravelled when Kirat’s younger cousin Simran Bhogal admitted she was behind the elaborate web of lies, which began in 2009.
At the time, Kirat was working as an arts and events assistant for Hounslow Community Services and presenting a show on Radio Desi, a station for the Punjabi community.
She was in an on-off 18-year relationship but her partner would get “cold feet” every time the subject of marriage came up.
Out of the blue, she got a Facebook message purporting to be from her cousin Simran’s ex-boyfriend JJ, whose big brother was a heart consultant called Bobby.
JJ apparently wanted help to win Simran back.
They talked for a while but when Kirat was told that JJ had suddenly died, Simran put her in touch with ‘Bobby’ so she could pass on her condolences.
Simran had taken the first step to reeling her cousin in.
Over the next three years Kirat and married Bobby swapped messages as friends but in November 2013, she got a message that turned her world upside down.
Simran told her that Bobby had been shot six times in Kenya and been rushed to a New York hospital where he’d been placed in witness protection.
“I didn’t understand,” says Kirat.
“Apparently he’d been escorted from Nairobi to New York with the help of Interpol. It was like something out of a move and quite hard to get your head around.
“I understood that to be in witness protection there had to be a threat to life. People being shot in Kenya wasn’t unusual and I just thought after the shooting incident his powerful family had to get him out of danger.
“Bobby messages me from a new Facebook profile and tells me he’s in witness protection because of a failed business deal he’s done, and ultimately he’s the one that paid the price.”
I found his voice very strange, very squeaky. I mentioned it to Kirat but she said ‘please, don’t judge him’
Kirat's mum Akvinder
What followed was five and a half years of constant messaging between the pair after Bobby’s marriage to wife Sanj seemingly broke up due to the stress surrounding the assassination attempt.
Smiling and talking about Bobby in real time – almost as if their relationship existed for real – Kirat tells Netflix how she was bombarded with flowers and gifts while Bobby proposed on Facebook three months after they started a romance on Valentine’s Day 2015.
Initially, he was allegedly unable to talk because a stroke following the shooting had left him partially paralysed and his vocal chords damaged. But speech therapy saw him talk in a whisper.
Kirat’s mum Akvinder tells the show: “I found his voice very strange, very squeaky. I mentioned it to Kirat but she said ‘please, don’t judge him’.”
The ‘couple’ spent hours on Skype and often fell asleep talking to each other while other Facebook friends – some whose identities were stolen, others simply made up – added texture to the love story.
Bobby was never allowed to show his face due to being in witness protection, said Kirat, but, when he coudn’t talk, “he would communicate by making a noise, whether it be a tap, a grunt or whatever.”
A cousin called Yashvir and friend called Rajvir ensured Kirat knew how much Bobby loved her while the other of the 60 or so fake or stolen profiles set up by Simran often commented on the pair’s posts.
Duplicitous cousin Simran even ‘helped’ when she was in New York for work – and managed to bring over a T-shirt of Bobby’s seemingly sprayed with his favourite cologne.
Disaster struck, however, when Bobby said he had a confession to make – that he and ex wife Sanj slept together just once and she had fallen pregnant.
Karit says softly: “I told him he should go back to Sanj but he wants to be with me, he chooses me.”
Sickeningly, the real Bobby and wife Sanj welcomed a baby in real-life and, stealing their pictures, Simran convinced Kirat she was involved in the child’s life by helping choose outfits for the little boy.
Things took an even darker turn when Bobby started controlling Kirat, becoming angry if he called and she couldn’t answer.
Now stressed out by the pressure of the relationship, losing weight and withdrawing from friends, Kirat lost her events job in 2015.
She says: “Every day I’d get up in the morning and take a selfie, send it to Bobby on messenger, keep my Facebook open for him, drive home, have dinner and spend time with my family, then the Skype calls would start.
“The days started rolling into one. It was like he was attached to me – Bobby owned my time now.”
Months later Kirat quit her radio show after Bobby and two of his Facebook ‘friends’ accused her of flirting with a regular caller.
Exhausted, Kirat was growing sick of her fiance’s excuses for not visiting, citing witness protection rules, then mental health issues.
In June 2018, she issued an ultimatum – either Bobby fly to the UK or she’d call off their relationship.
She watched excitedly as his plane flew from New York to London, where he allegedly booked into a hotel in London.
Bobby asked for time to acclimatise to being back in the UK but, after two weeks of avoiding Kirat, she went to his hotel in Kensington – only to be told he wasn’t a guest.
I’ve got my son behind me and I’m starting to fear how this is going to turn out because we don’t know who this complete stranger is
The real Bobby
She then went to an old address she connected to him and spotted his wife Sanj crossing the road after leaving her parent’s house.
Kirat says: “Sanj leaves the house and walks past my car. I remember being so angry I thought I’m going to turn the engine on and put my foot down on the accelerator but that’s not me.”
Distraught, Kirat called a private detective and within 24 hours had a current address for Bobby.
Knocking the door of his home, she was met by the very confused REAL Bobby and wife Sanj.
Bobby said they had no idea who Kirat was, adding: “We needed to figure out how she knew our names, how she’d figured out where we lived.
“I’ve got my son behind me and I’m starting to fear how this is going to turn out because we don’t know who this complete stranger is.”
Wife Sanj said she was left petrified when Kirat told her she’d seen her at her parents’ house in London.
Sanj said: “Oh my god, how long had she been watching me for? She mentioned she felt such a strong connection to Bobby’s son and had these presents she wanted to give him. She said she’d always felt like he was her stepson.
“I just felt really scared.”
Eventually, Kirat left the house with her “head spinning” while Bobby and his wife called the police.
Hours after getting home, Kirat’s cousin Simran pulled up outside her home in her car.
The days started rolling into one. It was like he was attached to me – Bobby owned my time now
Kirat
Her face screwed up with disgust, Kirat says: “I open the door and she says, ‘I don’t think I should come in’. She’s got a serious face and I ask why and she looks at me and says ‘it was all me’.
“What do you mean it was all me?’ She says ‘I’m Bobby’.
“ I’m slowly registering that she means she’s been pretending to be Bobby but I can’t quite understand and start calling out names (of Bobby’s friends on FB) and she says ‘it was me, I was all of them’.
“I suddenly question ‘who have I been sleeping with on the phone for the last three years?’ She says ‘it was me’
“I was violated, I wanted to be sick and I’m just screaming at her, ‘why, why did you do it?’
“She’s ruined my whole life, stolen the best years of my life off me and all she could say was ‘I ruined my own life (too)’, no expression, nothing.”
Kirat went to police who said no criminal offence had taken place. She later brought a civil action against Simran, which was settled out of court.
By Ashley Armstrong, Business Editor
THE number falling for online love scams shot up more than a quarter in six months, a survey found.
Hundreds of customers at one bank alone handed over around £3.8million to the con between March and August.
That was a 27 per cent jump from just over £3million reported stolen to Santander between August 2023 and this March.
The average loss was £4,500 and customers aged 18 to 93 were targeted.
The bank’s poll of 2,000 people found half had received unsolicited online flirtatious messages they suspected or confirmed to be a scam.
Nearly a third said they would offer money to a romantic partner they had known for less than six months.
But nearly two-thirds reckon they would never fall for a romance fraud.
Paul Gorton, a contestant on BBC’s The Traitors, said: “In my experience, it’s surprisingly easy to build deep trust, especially when someone is charming and says all the right things.
“As we start to feel a connection, whether it’s real or not, we can end up overlooking red flags and ignore any warnings from others around us.
“Stay vigilant to spot a traitor, it’d be too easy if they simply messaged you out of the blue asking for your money.
“Approach any new relationship with cautious optimism, complete checks and having your wits about you at the start.”
Kirat’s story has also been told in a hit podcast called Sweet Bobby, which has been downloaded millions of times.
The question still remains about how an intelligent, independent woman could fall for such an outlandish scam.
Perhaps the clue lies in Kirat’s longing to settle down.
In the documentary, she says several times she was feeling under pressure to wed, like her friends in the Punjabi community, and was desperate to have children.
She says: “From a very young age I dreamt of getting married and having a family, that’s what matters to me more than anything else.
“There’s a picture of me, I think I was two, and my aunty dressed me up in my mum’s wedding outfit – that’s their hopes and dreams too.”
Now Kirat, who wants new laws surrounding catfishing, is unsure whether she will ever be able to have children.
She said: “I’m not looking for sympathy. I’m looking for people to say ‘this is wrong, we need to be making people accountable’.
“I am now 44 and I’m doing my utmost to get my life to where it should be. Will I ever be a mum? At my age, it’s a massive question mark but I have to be responsible for my future – Simran never will be.”
Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare will be available to stream on Netflix from October 16
