Dunedin and Auckland Police have got together, making an arrest over an alleged romance scam that has spanned nearly two decades.<\/p>\n
Over this period an unsuspecting Dunedin man has lost more than half a million dollars.<\/p>\n
Today, Dunedin Police executed a search warrant at an Auckland property, assisted by the Auckland City Financial Crime Unit.<\/p>\n
A 44-year-old Ellerslie woman was arrested and faces a representative charge of obtains by deception.<\/p>\n
\u201cPolice will allege in court that this scam has run for a period of 18 years, beginning online in 2006,\u201d acting Detective Senior Sergeant Ali Ramsay, from the Auckland City Financial Crime Unit, says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe offender in this case has allegedly obtained $525,537 through this elaborate scam.\u201d<\/p>\n
The woman is expected to appear in the Auckland District Court on 17 February 2026.<\/p>\n
Acting Detective Senior Sergeant Ramsay says being able to put an alleged offender before the Court is a good outcome.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur colleagues in Dunedin have been investigating this case, and we\u2019re glad to have assisted in this result,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cRomance scams are usually perpetrated by offshore offenders, making prosecutions difficult for law enforcement.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the very heart of this are victims whose good nature is taken advantage of, causing emotional and financial stress.\u201d<\/p>\n
Police are unable to comment further about specifics in the case as matters are now before the Court.<\/p>\n
Police remind the public to be extremely cautious when meeting new people online or through dating applications.<\/p>\n
Netsafe has more information on romance scams and what to look out for on its website.<\/p>\n
ENDS.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jarred Williamson\/NZ Police<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dunedin and Auckland Police have got together, making an arrest over an alleged romance scam that has spanned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-278837","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}