This pattern of behaviour was typical of Harkins, who the BBC understands targeted at least 30 women in a raft of crimes spanning almost a decade. He used dating sites such as Tinder to seek new victims.
Harkins is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence for crimes against 10 women in Scotland, including rape, assaults, recording intimate videos without consent and defrauding more than £214,000 from women he met online.
On his dating profile, Harkins presented himself as a jet-setting, business-owning “gym rat”, but in reality he was a prolific and predatory fraudster.
His scams included pretending to book romantic holidays and asking for money for his business because his bank account was frozen.
In other cases he pressured women to take out loans of up to £12,000 to give to him. He also used their identities to take out loans himself. One woman was forced into bankruptcy while others spent years paying off debts, suffering mental health issues as a result.
Many of the women targeted by Harkin were too ashamed to tell family and friends of their ordeals.