How Swedish woman changed life of Nigerian man who scammed her

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According to the BBC, Grette had met the scammer on a dating site where he posed as a 58-year-old Danish man and they fell in love, not knowing she was being propped for a love scam.

Grette, who works as an art teacher, painter and art therapist, told the BBC that after three months of Internet romance with the man who called himself Johnny, he agreed to come over and visit her in Sweden.

But before traveling to be with her, he had allegedly told her that he and his son needed to make a quick trip to Nigeria for a job interview with an oil company.

Typical of a well thought out scheme, the next phone call he made to her was to tell her that he and his son were robbed, shot and in a hospital in Lagos, and needed money to pay for an emergency operation.

She first sent him €1000 for the treatment and after the first time, he kept squeezing her for money till she had sent him several thousands of Euro, but when she realized she was being defrauded, she stopped responding to his messages.

After some weeks of silence, the man allegedly called her and confessed and to be very sure of his change of heart, she decided to travel to Nigeria and that move changed the fake romance to a true friendship that also changed his life and her perception of Nigeria and Africa.

Grette described her two weeks in Nigeria as blissful as she met the young man and his friends, most of whom were scammers.

Speaking about the experience, Grette said:

"Johnny has given me more than he took. Without him, I wouldn't have met Africa. He promised her that he would give up scamming and he did.

We still communicate and last year, he bought one of my paintings. He is very dear to me.

He has asked me so many times to forgive him and I told him that the most important thing is to forgive himself," Grette said.

Seeing an opportunity to make a difference, an idea came to Grette who began arranging a number of African artists to visit Europe for art exhibitions, workshops, conferences, and competitions. She has assisted them to source international grants and other funding to advance their work.

Ms Grette arranged for African artists to visit Europe

Photo Credit: BBC

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With her financial support, the Internet fraudster traveled to the United States of America for further studies and after getting his degree, he got a job with an oil company last year.