The CEO of Match.com has said “things happen in life” after an Illinois widower was found dead following a romance scam.
Laura Kowal, 57, had been in a relationship with a man she met on the site named ‘Frank Borg’ for more than a year when she was discovered dead in the Mississippi River in August 2020.
Her daughter, Kelly Gowe, received a call from a federal agent notifying her that her mother had been the victim of a scam and when she tried to contact her mother she discovered that she was missing.
speaking to CBS NewsGowe revealed that he found records showing that Kowal had transferred the not-real Borg $1.5 million and left him a disturbing note.
After a year-long investigation by CBS News In online romance scams like the one Kowal was caught in, the outlet managed to catch up with CEO Bernard Kim.
When asked about those who had lost their life savings to scammers, he told the outlet: ‘Things happen in life. That’s really difficult.’
When asked about those who had lost their life savings to scammers, he told the outlet: “Things happen in life.
Laura Kowal (pictured), 57, mysteriously drowned in the Mississippi River after being scammed out of $1.5 million by a man she met online.
Kim continued: ‘I have enormous empathy for the things that happen, but our job is to keep people safe on our platforms; That’s the most important thing for us.’
The media’s investigation discovered how criminals based abroad had managed to steal more than a billion dollars last year from victims.
Top law enforcement officials told CBS that the scams are not new, but are accelerating because of the easy access scammers have to vulnerable and lonely Americans who use dating apps.
In the note to her daughter, Kowal wrote: I have been living a double life this past year. It has left me ruined and destroyed.
‘Yes, it’s about Frank, the man I met through online dating. I tried to stop this many times, but I knew he would end up dead.”
On August 7, 2020, Kowal’s body was discovered near Canton, Missouri, nearly four hours from his home in Galena, Illinois, and his car was recovered nearly 50 miles from his body, it reported. WTVO.
No formal decision has been issued on how Kowal died, but her autopsy determined she died from drowning.
‘They are the scammers, they are the criminals behind those emails. It’s Frank Borg… this character. “He killed my mom,” Gowe said.
Gowe found records showing Kowal had transferred Borg $1.5 million and a haunting note from her mother stating she knew she would end up dead.
Kowal had been in a relationship with a man she met on Match.com called ‘Frank Borg’ who used the photos above.
No formal ruling has been made on Kowal’s manner of death, but her autopsy determined that she died from drowning.
“And everyone who is involved in this scam in any capacity, those who move the money, those who make a phone call, those who press “enter” and “send” on an email, they are all responsible for the death of my mother”.
Emails shared with CBS News showed that within weeks of meeting virtually in 2018, Kowal and Borg were sharing emails telling each other they were in love despite never having met in person and he convinced her to send him money.
‘She had all these buckets full in her life, my mother had them, but one was missing, which was companionship. And that’s ultimately the situation we’re in now, and that’s why,” Gowe said.
According to her obituary, Kowal loved tending her flower and vegetable gardens, participating in local golf leagues and volunteering in dog therapy work with her beloved golden doodle Effie at a nursing home.
Federal agents discovered that Borg’s photographs belonged to a Chilean doctor and his emails traced back to Ghana.
Nearly 70,000 people reported a romance scam in 2022, according to the Federal Trade Commission, a government watchdog.
Reported losses reached a staggering $1.3 billion, with victims losing $4,400 on average.
“Digital tools are making it easier than ever to reach working Americans, and we see the effects of that in the data,” said Samuel Levine, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
Romance scammers routinely create fake social media profiles to target victims online.
A former scammer from Ghana, seen here, told CBS that without dating sites you can’t scam anyone.
They engage in a long campaign, often involving hours of messaging every day, to build a relationship with the victim before diverting the conversation to money.
In some cases, criminals will present an investment opportunity or solicit funds for a fake medical procedure or charitable initiative.
So-called “pig butcher” scams fall into this category, where victims are effectively “fattened” with a fake relationship before being “butchered” through fraudulent investment advice.
A former scammer from Ghana told CBS: “You can’t do anything without those online dating sites.”
Match Group, which operates several popular dating sites, says it has expanded its security posture and invests more than $125 million a year to protect customers.
The company also says it managed to remove 96 percent of fake accounts in one day.
The company disputes an allegation by the Federal Trade Commission that said in a lawsuit that up to 30 percent of profiles were opened to commit fraud.
Match Group said they did not believe the claim had merit and was not legally responsible for interactions between scammers and their victims.
A judge dismissed the part of the case that attempted to hold the group liable for fraudulent activity on its sites.