Romance fraud, like the crimes featured in the Netflix documentary Tinder Swindler, is costing Leicestershire people nearly a million pounds a year.
And that’s just counting the victims who actually turn to police after falling for the lies of their online loves.
In one recent case, a 43-year-old Leicestershire woman fell in love with a man she met online only to have her heart broken when he took £40,000 she lent him and disappeared.