British pensioner loses everything after woman's photos leaves his life in ruins
Cyber criminals have destroyed the life of an elderly British man living in Bangkok.
A former UN flight operator, 68-year-old Simon Charles Hill was happily surviving on his state pension when he fell victim to scammers represented by almost certainly AI-generated pictures of a glamorous blonde woman.
Depicted online as an American named Emily Smith, the con saw her expecting $3 million's (£2,219,624.40) worth of inheritance that had to be activated through a number of small payments.
Per ViralPress, the now-destitute Hill recalled: "She introduced me to her lawyer who was disposing of her property and assets — a total of $3 million to be paid directly into my bank account.
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"The sale of the house and the transfer of the funds to my account incurred a fee and it was assured to me that I would receive the bank transfer once I had paid these fees.
"I was able to sustain myself for a while, but it wasn't going to last, and that's when I realised... it sort of dawned on me that I was actually homeless."
The Daily Mail reports that Hill transferred his whole monthly pension of £500 around eight times before raiding his life savings to help out Emily.
On how it all began, the expatriate shared: "I took to talking with a lady on social media. There was a girl called Emily Smith.
"She reached out to me on Facebook. And her texts were very warm and inviting, and she sounded like a three-dimensional kind of girl, although I didn't know whether she existed or not."
When he was eventually booted out of his apartment, Hill couldn't even afford to buy food anymore and was found sleeping rough in a hotel lobby.
In the end, the victim found aid with the Bangkok Community Help Foundation, who helped him to avoid prison time (his Thai visa had expired) by paying for flights back to the UK.
The BCHF claimed Hill was 'very frail and weak' when they first encountered him in July of this summer.
Co-founder of the organisation, Friso Poldervaart, took Hill to its 'Centre of Dreams' shelter to begin with, where he was treated to recovery space.
On reflection, the pensioner described Poldervaart as his 'knight in shining armour'.
"At the time, I thought there was nothing. I thought that I would be out on the street. And then you appeared, rather like a knight in shining armour, and said that I would be going with you, in fact," he noted.
"I was not going to the immigration detention centre, as prescribed by the British Embassy, I believe, which I find astonishing, frankly."
Dan Seddon