A woman was reportedly scammed by a stranger who claimed he was a Russian astronaut that needed money to return to earth.
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The 65-year-old woman from Shiga Prefecture, Japan, met the man on social media in June and started communicating on the Line app, and he claimed he was in love with her. Additionally, he told the woman he wanted to marry her and move to Japan but couldn’t because he was “aboard” the International Space Station and didn’t have the money to return to earth. “I want to start my life in Japan. Saying this 1,000 times won’t be enough, but I’ll keep saying it. I love you,” he wrote in one of the messages.
According to Oddity Central, the woman said she believed the man because he used famous space agency acronyms such as NASA and JAXA and had photos of the ISS on his Instagram page. Authorities said the woman gave the man 4.4 million yen($30,000) on five different occasions, but she contacted police after he continued to ask for more money.
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Investigators were reportedly shocked by her story, but the woman said his lies fooled her, and the scam occurred between August 19 and September 5.
This is not the first time a fake astronaut has scammed someone.
A similar situation involved an email scam where someone pretended to be the cousin of Abacha Tunde, the first Nigerian astronaut. The email claims Tunde was left on board a Soviet space station, but he was still getting paid for his service, which totaled up to $15 million but needed a certain amount to return to earth. If a victim responded to the email, the scammer said they would need to pay $3 million and could obtain 20 percent of Tunde’s fortune.
“I am Dr. Bakare Tunde, the cousin of Nigerian Astronaut, Air Force Major Abacha Tunde. He was the first African in space when he made a secret flight to the Salyut 6 space station in 1979. He was on a later Soviet spaceflight, Soyuz T-16Z to the secret Soviet military space station Salyut 8T in 1989. He was stranded there in 1990 when the Soviet Union was dissolved. His other Soviet crew members returned to earth on the Soyuz T-16Z, but his place was taken up by return cargo. There have been occasional Progrez supply flights to keep him going since that time. He is in good humor, but wants to come home.
In the 14 years since he has been on the station, he has accumulated flight pay and interest amounting to almost $ 15,000,000 American Dollars. This is held in a trust at the Lagos National Savings and Trust Association. If we can obtain access to this money, we can place a down payment with the Russian Space Authorities for a Soyuz return flight to bring him back to Earth. I am told this will cost $ 3,000,000 American Dollars. In order to access his trust fund we need your assistance”
In a report by IFL Science, Tunde does not exist, and Nigeria doesn’t have any current space programs.