A woman from the United States of America was defrauded of €400,000 since 2013 by a Romanian man in prison who posed as a priest, demanding money from her under the pretext of building a kindergarten or a pharmacy that would offer free medicine to the needy. . The man also had eight accomplices who posted ads on the website posing as priests.

According to the Romanian police, in January the Redeuci police registered a complaint from a woman from the United States of America who complained that between 2013 and 2021, unknown persons calling themselves priests asked and received from her about 400,000 US dollars. claiming that they want to build a kindergarten or a pharmacy for the poor.

The police established that in late 2013, while in the United States of America, the victim allegedly approached an ad posted on an Internet site by unidentified persons attributed to priests with the intention of “establishing a spiritual connection that leads to his closeness to the church.” Thus, the victim contacted the person in the ad by phone and would start a relationship with unknown and unidentified people, often talking on the phone and “at one point reaching full confidence that the person he was corresponding with was a priest from Suceava.”

• “Having won the trust of the victim and convinced her that he was a priest, the unidentified person would begin to demand different amounts of money from him, with certain specific goals of assistance, namely the construction of churches, kindergartens or pharmacies, etc. as well as other humanitarian reasons.
• Thus, between 2013 and 2021, the victim would accept requests from the person concerned and repeatedly send them sums of money through various methods, bank or online transfers, totaling approximately 400,000 US dollars.
• At the end of 2021, the affected person would have managed to contact the corresponding priest and understand that in the period 2013-2021 he would have been misled by unidentified persons who would falsely attribute to him the quality of a priest, with the aim of obtaining material benefit,” it says. police reports.

According to the source cited, the person who would have assigned their identities to the priests, thereby netting her and her accomplices an estimated $400,000, is a man in prison.

“Thus, during the years 2013 – 2021, while in custody in a penitentiary, using the false quality of a priest, falsely attributing the identity of monks, he allegedly misled the victim in the United States of America on the phone of America, from which, under the false pretext of building a kindergarten , a pharmacy that provides free medicine for the needy, carrying out work in churches or for humanitarian reasons, he would unfairly demand and receive, through his accomplices, respectively 8 people (5 men and 3 women), approximately 400,000 US dollars,” – the police said.

In this case, 11 searches were conducted and arrest warrants were issued. The colony was also searched, and the suspect’s mobile phone and several documents were found. The suspect is a 44-year-old man, also convicted of fraud, and 6 other people are being investigated together with him.