TINDER SWINDLER: Professor Tracks Down Married African Who Stole Her Savings By Claiming To Be Single Dutch Engineer

A beautiful professor at a business school in Rotterdam turned the tables on an African love fraudster she met on Tinder who conned her out of more than GBP 340,000 by tracking him down – and calling the cops.

Alie Koroma poses with his wife in an undated photo. He allegedly swindled Carolina Berrocal, a Belgian professor with whom he met on Tinder, using the fake name Peter Anderson. (Alie Yayah Koroma/CEN)

Student Alie Koroma from Sierra Leone had conned Belgian mother of two, Carolina Berrocal, into thinking that he was a Dutch engineer named Patrick Anderson.

He had stolen pictures from an American life coach named Jordan Bach for the scam and took advantage of the fact that his victim was recently widowed and had joined Tinder at a vulnerable time.

He had then proceeded to weave an elaborate web of lies about making a trip to Istanbul to buy engineering equipment for a bridge-building project, and said he had been left financially embarrassed when Internet problems meant he could not access funds to pay for machinery.

He asked her to send him USD 300,000 (GBP 270,000) to complete the purchase of the machines, and it would be no problem to pay back once the Internet was working, as he had USD 690,000 (GBP 565,000) on his account.

Alie Koroma poses with his wife in an undated photo. He allegedly swindled Carolina Berrocal, a Belgian professor with whom he met on Tinder, using the fake name Peter Anderson. (Alie Yayah Koroma/CEN)

In order to prevent his embarrassment, she forwarded the cash and then further demands came, including USD 5,000 (GBP 4,100) for shipping and then USD 8,500 (GBP 7,000) after he claimed he was stuck at the hotel.

The demands continued, with a contractor who needed to be paid USD 48,000 (GBP 39,000) and then USD 27,000 (GBP 22,100) to support his struggling business.

When she made the final payment and asked when she would get the money back, the conman threatened to cut off the ties, and also told her that if she paid another USD 200,000 she would have 10 million transferred over to her account.

Realising that things were not as they seemed, the mother of two, who is a professor at Rotterdam International Business School, started investigating, and the web of lies quickly unravelled.

Photo shows the wife of Alie Koroma, undated photo. Alie Koroma allegedly swindled Carolina Berrocal, a Belgian professor with whom he met on Tinder, using the fake name Peter Anderson. (Alie Yayah Koroma/CEN)

She discovered that the pictures he had sent himself were stolen from somebody else’s account, and she then managed to track down at least one other victim, a woman living in Romania, and after that, the identity of the fraudster that had stolen her money.

She found that he had spent the cash on setting up an educational consultancy firm called “Salone Turk” which was created with the cash he stole from his victims.

He also used the cash to fund a lavish wedding and get married for real with his unsuspecting wife unaware of the source of his funds.

The resourceful Belgian woman then alerted prosecutors in Istanbul, where she hired a lawyer that has now resulted in a criminal investigation against the student and the people whose bank accounts were used in order to get the cash.

Alie Koroma poses in an undated photo. He allegedly swindled Carolina Berrocal, a Belgian professor, with whom he met on Tinder, using the fake name Peter Anderson. (Alie Yayah Koroma/CEN)

Prosecutors in Istanbul have confirmed they are investigating the case and that the police are also looking at the people who owned the bank accounts used to make the transfers.