Please help me prove to my brother in law he's being scamed

[Spursfan1976]

Good morning.

I need some help to try to convince my brother in law that he is being scammed.

I can see that he is, but he won't believe me and blindly is being taken for a fool.

To cut a long story short, he met a soldier based in Syria by the name of Frank Mckeon, on a gay dating site.

after moving the conversation to WhatsApp, they talked for a few days, and all seemed ok to be honest.

But then my Bro in law got a message saying "franks" case had been broken into on base, and he wanted to ship it out to my Brother in law for safe keeping. At first he stated just had general personnel belongings in it, but later came out with the gold bars story.

My brother in law agreed, and then a day or so later got the message that there was taxes etc to be paid for the box to leave the country, and, "Frank" couldn't afford them, and could my Brother in law please pay, and, then he could sell the gold to recoup his expenses when it came.

He agreed without question and then got an email from a "David Grant" a supposed diplomat handling the shipment of the trunk, who, proceeded to advise my Brother in Law that card payments were subject to fee's that would reduce the amount paid off the taxes, and bit coin was the way to pay with no additional fees.

At this point I knew he was being scammed, and, told him, but he was so blindly in love with Frank, he wouldn't listen to me or his sister, and has, as fae as we know, started to pay.

I include pictures of "Frank" taken from a social media page i managed to find, (which shows the pics are at least a couple of years old, and were taken in Afghanistan) tho my brother in law(who has some of these pics sent to him) has the whole convo and more pics, which i can not access to provide much more detail to you, or any further pics.

If anyone can help, I'd be so grateful.

[Spursfan1976]

Forgot to add link to his social media https://www.instagram.com/mil.frankmckeon/

[Big Al]

I get no hits for any of the images you have provided.
Without more information I cannot help much.
If an E-mail address is involved, any deployed American Soldier should have a .mil (I think) E-mail address.

The only other thing is our basic advice, Anyone you have never met in person face to face but only through the internet who asks you for money no matter what the reason will be a scammer 99.9% of the time.

[Spursfan1976]

I get no hits for any of the images you have provided.
Without more information I cannot help much.
If an E-mail address is involved, any deployed American Soldier should have a .mil (I think) E-mail address.

The only other thing is our basic advice, Anyone you have never met in person face to face but only through the internet who asks you for money no matter what the reason will be a scammer 99.9% of the time.

Sadly anything like that is on my Brother in laws phone and I can't get access to it without him knowing. That Instagram account is all i've managed to find, I did trawl through your scammers image library but no match, so I know it's a long shot!

[Big Al]

It's hard being the associate of a scam victim.
Confronting the victim about the scam usually only alienates the well intended person from the victim.
Romance scammers simply say something like, "well they don't understand our love".
Your best strategy is to be interested in your Brother-in-laws new love while trying to collect information.

Ultimately, the victim will have to decide on their own that the relationship is one-sided and they are being used.

[Spursfan1976]

I've managed to get the phone number that "frank" has given my Brother in Law, its +1 (337) 944-4303 and am working on getting any email addresses or paperwork that "frank" sends!

EDIT - that's the number "frank" uses to login to WhatsApp, I have no idea how to tell if it's a legit mobile number or not! any help would be appreciated!

[Big Al]

Phone: +13379444303
Number billable as geographic number
Country or destination United States
City or exchange location Loreauville, LA
Original network provider* Cox Cable New Orleans, Inc.

These geographic numbers are usually redirect numbers transferring to whatever country the scammer is actually in.

[Spursfan1976]

I think I’ve got something that I might be able to use to convince him this is a scam. I managed to get hold of his phone and found the attached message from “diplomat David grant” confirming receipt of the trunk, and can’t fail to notice his phone number is the same as “Franks” one. (I attach a copy of the WhatsApp profile header my Brother in law has given "Frank" showing his number as given in a post above, as well as a copy of the email & attachment from the "Diplomat" that shows his phone number to be the same)

Does that look right to you as before I talk to him again, I thought I’d ask someone who obviously knows a thing or two about how these scams and scammers work.

There's little else in the media that shows where he's paid money to, just some mention of £135 worth of payments made to a bitcoin account, so I know he's lost that as well as possibly handed over his bank details., and the general lovey dovey chat that these people use to hook in their marks (and a few intimate pics but wont go into those, I'm sure you can imagine!)

[Big Al]

The scammer will have already been asked that question by other victims and will already have a convenient lie worked out to cover it.

From the evidence, it's a pretty standard Romance / Trunk box scam.
Scammer meets victim.
Gets victim to fall in love.
Wants to send a non-existent package to victim containing either money or valuables and money.
Package gets stopped at a border somewhere (Hartsfield / Jackson airport).
Money is required to get the package back in motion.
This money can be for any of a number of things like a "Diplomatic Yellow Tag" or other bogus reason.
If the victim sends the money something else goes wrong with the package requiring more money.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Meanwhile the lover will keep fluffing the victim with lies.
Sooner or later the victim stops paying. Either because they're broke or decide it's a scam and quits.
Then the scammers often send an out of the blue E-mail from a fake Law Enforcement entity.
They will claim to have examined the package by x-ray or visually and found the money etc.
The scammer then tries to extort more money from the victim under the threat of arrest if the victim doesn't pay.

There is a lot of references to Hartsfield Jackson airport on our forum. Here's one in our romance forum:
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=73325&p=181325&hilit=Hartsfield#p181325

The scammer is using a female profile but the idea is the same.

[Spursfan1976]

Is it worth me flagging up to my brother in law that "Frank" and "Diplomat David Grant" have the exact same phone number? That'd be enough of a red flag to me!