A 74-year-old widow was scammed out of half her life’s savings after embarking on what she believed to be an online relationship with Sir David Attenborough. Diane, whose name has been changed for anonymity, handed CA$22,000 (£12,000) to a fraudster posing as the 99-year-old broadcaster after receiving a friend request on Facebook. After initiating contact in October 2024, the cyber criminal moved their conversation to the Telegram messaging app, and just weeks into the scam, they were declaring their love for each other.

Diane, who lives in Canada, continued messaging the person she believed to be Sir David for months, staying up late to talk to him on UK time. The fraudster told the 74-year-old that his ex-wife had stolen hundreds of thousands of pounds from him and said he needed money to cover legal fees and fund life-saving kidney treatment.

She initially deposited CA$4,000 (£2,200) into a cryptocurrency account at his request, before making further payments of between a few hundred and several thousand dollars – all of which is nearly impossible to trace or recover.

By March 2025, she had sent almost half of her life savings, leaving just CA$6,000 (£3,300) in an account she could access.

In return, the scammer made Diane promises of marriage if she sold her flat and moved to London, prompting her to buy a passport – but, even then, she had doubts.

The 74-year-old told The Independent: “All this time, a little voice inside was saying, ‘Diane, cut it off. He’s scamming you.’ But I was in love with him.”

When she asked for proof of his identity, she received an AI-generated video, complete with the natural historian’s voice and image.

Diane finally cut off contact with the fraudster when confronted by her son, Jim, who had learned what she was doing and convinced her to stop.

10 days later, the scammer, still pretending to be Sir David, emailed: “You never deserved me. You pretended you loved me when you never did. You are an idiot for causing me this pain in my heart.”

Despite admitting the reality of the scam, Diane was lured back in around six weeks later, when she emptied the remainder of her savings and sent them to the cyber criminal.

She has since sought medical help and opened a joint bank account with her son, enabling him to monitor her transactions.

Romance fraud has become increasingly common in recent years, with research from UK Finance suggesting it typically involves more payments than any other kind of fraud.

An estimated £20.5 million was lost to romance scams in the first half of 2025, and the figure has almost doubled year-on-year since 2020.

Analysis of TSB data by the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau found that 58% of all romance fraud cases start on social media, with 29% involving celebrity impersonations.