A man who cheated on love interests of $ 80,000 could have other victims, police say



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John Martin Hill, 35, contacted Match.com in late March for the woman from Alpharetta, Georgia, the Gwinnett County Police Department said Wednesday.

Hill took the woman to a date the same day they met, and the two agreed to get married within a week of their meeting, the authorities said.

He told the woman that he was a millionaire and they decided to invest in a nest of love. The woman gave her fiancee $ 80,000 to help her buy the house, police said.

"During their short romantic relationship, he convinced them that they were in love and that they wanted to buy a house together, they went to look for a house and chose a house that interested them." said the police.

When he had the money, he cut off all contact with the woman, police said.

He had another house and another family

When the investigators examined the case, they unveiled a scam that went beyond Georgia.

The man lived with another woman and a child in Duluth, Georgia, and was wanted in Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey for similar scams, authorities said.

Before meeting someone for online transactions, read this

Since then, several women have come forward and said that they were in contact with him or that they knew women. Hill has changed names at least five times in two and a half years, the police said.

Police arrested him Wednesday at a hotel in Franklin, Tennessee.

"He tried to evade … policemen by rushing into a conference room of a hotel and hiding under a table.The officers ordered Hill to take under this table and lick it. have stopped, "said the Franklin Police Department in a statement.

Police ask women to be cautious

Authorities applauded the woman who reported the scam, claiming that she would probably have saved others from a similar fate.

"By sharing this story, we hope that he will not be able to victimize other women who use this scam," said Gwinnett County Police. "These types of crooks are very good at manipulating their victims, they tend to say everything a woman wants to hear."

Hill is being held with a $ 500,000 bail while he's waiting for extradition to Georgia, where he faces a theft charge for deception – a crime. The information about his lawyer was not immediately available.

Romantic scams rage in the United States

Online scams are prevalent in the United States and are more popular than any other type of consumer fraud, according to the Federal Trade Commission. He estimates that Americans lost $ 143 million in online romantic scams last year.

"Reports indicate that crooks are active on dating apps, but also on social networking sites that are not usually used for dating." For example, many people say that the scam started with a Facebook message, "says the FTC.

Romance crooks start by trying to steal your heart before you get your money, they say.

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