Police arrest pair alleged to have scammed Manitoba woman out of $50K in online dating scheme

Manitoba and Ontario police forces have arrested a pair of men in the Toronto area who allegedly scammed a Thompson, Man., woman out of more than$50,000 through an online dating scheme.

The woman approached investigators on Sept. 13, 2019, under the suspicion that she had been the victim of an online romance scam, RCMP said.

She told Thompson RCMP that she met a man through an online dating site in July of that year and believed she was in a relationship with him. In the weeks that followed, she sent him over $50,000.

Mounties in Thompson and in the RCMP major crimes unit mounted a two-year investigation. Through search warrants, RCMP say they got their hands on hundreds of pages of documents that were reviewed by police.

And on Monday, with help from Ontario Provincial Police, officers arresteda 41-year-old man and a 25-year-old manfrom the Greater Toronto Area.

They were transported to Manitoba and charged with theft over $5,000 and fraud over $5,000. The pair appeared in court in Winnipeg on Tuesday.

The RCMP investigation is ongoing.

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