How did one man scam women into giving him $160,000?

Romance scams. How did one man scam women into giving him thousands of dollars in some case tens of thousands of dollars? A 39-year-old man changed his name. His job is story multiple times he met women across Ontario pretending to be someone that they could trust and love. Of course, it turns out they could not with more on this story. John Woodward correspondent with W5's investigative unit. Good morning, John.

good morning thanks for having me so tell me about this uh... the man who did this i was just looking at pictures of i think in like he's he's he's uh... no treat to look at he is not but everybody we talked to a week after a great number of women or unfortunately involved in this case what he lacked in looks he'd definitely made up for in charm and charisma and and it was hard listening to these

Women because they fell head over heels for him very quickly. And each of them couldn't really believe how easy it was. But when you put all of these together, as well as you hear from the judge in this case, you realize that these are smart women who were generally had a good head on their shoulders, but were hit with a very practiced and sophisticated operator who'd been doing it for most of his life.

Okay, so give us a couple of examples of women who were taken in for how much. Uh, yeah. So the, the one that sort of started us off here, uh, as a woman and she was in the motorcycles. She, she meets this guy, uh, online who's, who also appears to be in the motorcycles and they, you know, there's lots of pictures that I've seen of them riding around and, and you know, it seems like they're having a good time.

And she describes, you know, he would, he would just, you know, talk about his dad, talk about working on a horse ranch or horse stables. And he back up all these stories with pictures. You know, here I am at the stables. Here I am with my dad at our farm. Here I am at the hospital. My dad's in the hospital. Here's a picture of me outside the hospital. And all of this backed up, right? We know you'd hear something. Some of these tend to picture of it. Why would you doubt that?

But then the relationship tenor changed a little bit. He needed some money. And she needed a bit of money too for reasons. And he said, look, I'll help you sell your motorbike. That'll get you 10,000. There's a couple other business opportunities you can have. That's another few thousand dollars. And the money goes. And then all of a sudden, he's a different guy. All of a sudden, he's disappeared.

She didn't have the money for the motorcycle. All of these investments disappeared. And that left her going, what on earth did it happen? So she starts to search. And she's looking, what is going on? Did I get taken here? And she comes across this website. Are we dating the same man? And there's pictures of this guy, this these bearded big guy. And there's hundreds of women on there.

And she's knowing she knew this guy as Johnny Meyer. But other women are pointing to the same pictures that she's gotten saying, no, that's John Bolder, or that's, you know, some other names. And she looks and she sees some of these pictures that were supposed to be during a time she was dating him, but were sent to these other women.

You know, the timelines don't match. They couldn't have been selfies taken at the same time. So she comes to the conclusion that not just those pictures obviously lie. He didn't actually have a family that owned a farm. He didn't actually work with table. He didn't actually, you know, all of these things. She realized the lie and when she compares itself to many, many other women, he realized that she's just one in a large group of people who've been at

well how many people did did he uh... managed to scam out of how much uh... so so with the website is a very large group you know over a hundred uh... but you know we we would limit ourselves in a question like that to how many was he convicted up so last week uh... he was in uh... uh... during courthouse where uh... the crown proceeded against thirteen uh... women

And of those, when you add that all up, that's $160,000 with the largest individual person, the $60,000. And that was because of a horse business. So he said, look, I would like to get involved in a business with you. We can buy some horses. We can make some money. Again, backed up by all these pictures that say, yeah, I work in the stables. Yes, I have a farm. Yeah, I have all the

the materials you would need to make a business like this work. And here's $60,000 in poof. Doesn't never see that again. She sued. She got a judgment because this guy, because he's a convicted conner, we can say this. He never showed up, probably had never intended to show up. And so she ends up being one of the 13 women.

that uh... that uh... that uh... mister moulder please guilty to defraud so tell me john uh... like what do the experts say it sounds like there's not much these women could have done that to protect themselves is there any clues here like what do experts say that you know you should look for you don't care i mean i'd like to give you sort of the the advice like be cautious don't rent and don't rush into things but all of that is generally good advice but when you are targeted by a

a very successful criminal. It is difficult to offer real clues. I can tell you that if these women had asked for his ID, for example, they would have seen that his stated name was not the same as his actual ID name. But when you're dealing with a sophisticated con artist, maybe he would have had an answer for that. Maybe he would have had an fake ID. I don't know if

if there would be a way to to really defend yourself against them. But in general, you know, like I said, it's good to be cautious. Don't, you know, give people money in a when you rush in a way where you've been going out for some time. But, but I, I, I, I have to stress to the audience here. These women, some of the women believed he was, you know, they've moved in with or he moved in with them.

Yes. They believe that he was a, you know, a relationship material like partner. It had gone to that point. They didn't know that at the same time he was doing that with them. He was also texting other women and setting up the next place to move to. You got to admire that kind of ability to compartmentalize, I would think. It's crazy. So we're in the courtroom and he stands up and he talks and he says, look, I've been at this game a long time. This is a guilty plea.

So we said he claims to be apologetic. And, you know, on the one hand, that's great. Like he seems to be willing to atonement for his actions. But on the other hand, how much of that is a line as well. And that's exactly the line that he puts in a plenty of fish profile that he appears to have made from prison. So he's still trying. That's the impression that I got. Is it still going on? He's been convicted, but he's still going. Hey, John. Hey, John, thanks for your time.

Yeah, thanks very much for having me.