Authorities in the United States (US) have traced an email address used to scam a 57-year-old American woman, Laura Kowal, to Ghana.

Laura Kowal, a widow who lived in Illinois State drowned to death miles from her home in 2020.

She fell prey to the $1.5 million scam which was reportedly orchestrated by a man she met on a dating app, Match.com, cbsnews.com reports.

The victim had since 2018 been dating the scammer who was using the name Frank Borg on Match.com and was using photos and the email address (which is now being linked to Ghana) of a Chilean doctor.

The daughter of the late Kowal, Kelly Gowe, got to know that her mother was in trouble when officials of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) called to inform her she had been a victim of a romance scam.

Kelly Gowe told CBS News that she realised her mum was missing after the call from the federal authorities and in her attempt to find her, she found records that show that she had wired $1.5 million to the scammer.

She added that in addition to the records of the money, she found a haunting note which read: “I've been living a double life this past year. It has left me broke and broken. Yes, it involves Frank, the man I met through online dating. I tried to stop this, many times, but I knew I would end up dead”.

After her daughter's discovery, Kowal's body was found near Canton, Missouri, and her car five miles from her mortal remains.

Even though the autopsy of the victim indicated that she died by drowning, her daughter insists that she was killed by the scammer.

“It's the scammers, It's the criminals behind those emails. It's Frank Borg… this character. He killed my mom.

“And everyone that is involved in this scam in any capacity, that's moving the money, that's placing a phone call, that's hitting ‘enter’ and ‘send’ on an email - they're all responsible for my mom's death,” Gowe said.

Read the full story published on April 23, 2024, by cbsnews.com

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