Colleen Russell fined after $70k online dating scam

A lonely widow landed in a Geelong court after an email to a Queensland fruit distributor uncovered a ‘bizarre’ dating scam.

Colleen Russell

A lonely widow who fell victim to a stranger’s “sob story” has landed in court over $70,000 stolen from a fruit company in a “bizarre” dating scam.

Colleen Russell, 47, was placed on a 12-month good behaviour bond and fined $500 in the Geelong Magistrates Court on Tuesday after pleading guilty to dealing with the proceeds of crime.

Her lawyer Mary Foley said the widow was still grieving the loss of her husband when the stranger convinced her to accept about $70,000 into her account.

She said he had told her he was overseas and needed to transfer the money into her account to pay some bills.

“He gave her a bit of a sob story so she gave in and provided her bank details,” Ms Foley said.

“The money goes into her account and she thinks she is doing a favour for him and helping him out because his son is in Melbourne and needs this money.

“She feels she wasn’t negligent because she did make a number of inquiries to validate why he needed her account.”

A statement of court facts said the fruit and vegetable distributor, based in Queensland, had received an email in September 2018 from a labour company saying its bank details had changed.

The distributor then transferred an outstanding amount of $70,000 to the new account when a day later staff realised they had been deceived and reported the matter to police.

Police prosecutor Emma Morse said the money was put into Russell’s account.

In the following days, Russell made several transactions, including $20,000 to an ANZ account, more than $15,000 to a National Australia Bank Account which was recalled the following day, $15,000 to a Citibank account and $2000 to a Western Union Bank account.

The court was told the total value of the transactions was about $66,000.

Russell told police during an interview in July 2019 she knew nothing about the email to the fruit distributor but admitted to knowing about the $70,000.

She had told officers she came across the funds through a friend of a friend and said during this time, the person tried to start a relationship with her and became quite persistent.

The court was told during her interview she admitted there were four account numbers provided and she put money into each account.

Magistrate Ann McGarvie described the offending as “bizarre”.

“If it’s too good to be true, it probably is,” she said. “It’s extraordinary that a basic stranger can convince you to deal with huge sums of money.

“Either you were incredibly naive or convinced by this fellow to deal with what is clearly criminal funds.”

No conviction was recorded.

Originally published as Colleen Russell fined after $70k online dating scam