[James Blake]: I started looking and I found all these profiles using pictures of me and my stuff. They were everywhere. None of them were mine. What the fuck is going on? … Someone had stolen my face and my name. Hunting the Catfish Crime Gang, BBC 2025
There have been lots of stories over the past few months on identity theft and how the information can be used against you. You may have heard something about stolen identity tax fraud. You may even have been a victim of it. It’s the biggest tax scam around right now. 60 Minutes: The Tax Refund Scheme, CBS 2015
[victim]: When you’re in love, you feel hope for the future. I wanted love because I was lonely. Hey Beautiful: Anatomy of a Romance Scam I: The Face of Trouble, BBC 2026
It’s kind of like a cult. At night when my husband would go to bed, that’s when I talked to him. It was like a drug. ibid.
Day after day he texted me … He texted more and more compliments … ibid.
The reality of it all just sunk in. ibid.
I paid for the heart surgery. ibid.
I found out who the man was behind the pictures. ibid.
[Brian]: I’m a gay man. I live in Los Angeles. Hey Beautiful: Anatomy of a Romance Scam II: Male Fraud
I am an explorer of areas that are outside the norm. ibid.
And then I got this email from this woman that wants me to verify that you know, that I’m Brian Haugen. I was kind of like … OK … It was coming out of nowhere … Wait, what is this? … I start getting more and more emails from women. ibid.
It was my face and a story. But I wasn’t part of that story. ibid.
All of my images had been used for scamming women out of their life savings. ibid.
ScamHaters’ lady: Thousands of women have reached out to us. ibid.
Scott Donald Hall. I didn’t know who he was. And I wanted to track him down. ibid. Victim
I need control of my identity. ibid. Brian
It’s not one scammer. There are literally thousands. Ibid. ScamHaters’ lady to Brian
If you keep it a secrets, the scammers win … This is a fight for justice for these women. And it’s also a fight for my identity. ibid. Brian
[victim]: Maybe it was possible we could catch him. Hey Beautiful: Anatomy of a Romance Scam III: In the Flesh
Because of some of my investigations, criminals are behind bars. So I was investigating Roxy’s case. I was introduced to Brian. Through Brian, I learned of the cases involving Annette, and Kathy, and Gaby. ibid. investigator Paul
The Yahoo Boys love to show off what they do online. This is how they recruit their scammers, by showing the wealth they’re getting. ibid.
Brian Haugen is clearly a victim of identity theft at a globalised industrial scale. Any time that Brian would post a new picture, Yahoo Boys would steal it. ibid.
There are entire networks of money mules. ibid.
Kathy is no longer here to tell her story. But she left all the breadcrums for us to be able to follow this path back to her scammer and potentially even other victims. ibid.
We actually found over 100 active social media profiles, across Facebook, across Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, a variety of dating websites … ibid. Paul to Brian
There is no fixing it at this point. ibid. Brian
There cases are very hard to prosecute. ibid. Paul
Platforms need to be doing more to take down these fake sites. ibid. Paul
6 months after Paul reported the fraudulent accounts, 18 of 130 had been remoed. And 10 new accounts impersonating Brian were identified. ibid. captions