Daejon Love case highlights online romance scams: Research reveals scammers’ tactics – and how to defend against them

Federal prosecutors charged a man identified as Daejon Love and an alleged accomplice with defrauding more than two dozen women of roughly $1.3 million by posing as a professional football player or wealthy real estate investor on dating apps. The complaint alleges he built romantic trust before steering victims toward fictitious investment opportunities. The FTC reports nearly 70,000 Americans fell victim to online romance scams in 2022, with losses topping $1.3 billion.

Researchers who studied scammer tactics, including a group-structured Chinese scam network called Sha Zhu Pan, found the schemes follow deliberate stages — building emotional connection, manufacturing urgency through crisis stories, then extracting money — rather than opportunistic targeting. Their research found scammers adapt communication patterns to victims' responses and that deterrent messages warning of legal consequences measurably reduced scammer engagement, suggesting both platform-side detection tools and user vigilance can blunt the scheme.

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