Two men from Ontario are facing fraud charges after a Manitoba woman was taken for tens of thousands of dollars through what police are calling an online romance scam.
The woman reached out to Thompson RCMP in September 2019, telling officers she thought she’d been scammed after meeting a man on an online dating site.
The woman said she began talking to the man earlier that summer and told officers she’d sent him more than $50,000 over the span of several weeks.
“The victim was consistently misled by the male, whom she believed she was providing assistance to, as she believed she was in a romantic relationship with him,” RCMP said in a release Wednesday.
An extensive two-year investigation that saw police comb through hundreds of pages of documents culminated in the arrest of two men from the Greater Toronto Area Monday.
Police say a 41-year-old man and a 25-year-old man are each charged with theft over $5,000 and fraud over $5,000.
Both men have been transported back to Manitoba and both made their first appearance in a Winnipeg court Tuesday.
Thompson RCMP are continuing to investigate.