Police in Japan’s Shiga prefecture are looking into the claims of a 65-year-old woman who says she was scammed by the man she thought was the love of her life.
Last June, the woman began a correspondence with the man on Instagram. It wasn’t long before he started proclaiming his love for her, and told her he couldn’t wait to start his “life in Japan” and marry her.
There was just one problem: He claimed to be an astronaut aboard the International Space Station, and couldn’t begin his life in Japan unless he found a ride home.
Over the months, this man conned the woman into sending her the equivalent of $30,000 to pay for a rocket and “landing fees.”
The woman says she believed this man because he “regularly” dropped names such as NASA and JAXA, or the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
She also said they'd occasionally fall out of communication, but that's because he said that it was hard to get a cellphone signal on the ISS.
According to the Kyodo News, the woman’s suspicions grew as the man continued to ask for money, so she alerted the authorities last month.
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