Katlin Mashek (romance scam)
Fraud and Theft in a Romance Scam
- 06-19-2025
- 6
This woman, Katlin Mashek, contacted me on Facebook - she must have done her homework. She contacted me and, once her romantic small talk had spread around and gotten to me, she came out with a hard-luck story that she needed $200k to finish a contract job for an American firm, claiming she was a computer engineer who only got paid if she completed her contract to install a new computer project.
The next scheme was about her inheritance from her deceased parents. She claimed she was entitled to a painting by Bercholli, a Renaissance artist, worth $120 million. She claimed the IMF was holding the painting, and she needed to find $2,000,000 for the IMF to release it. She then told me she had a project modernizing the Nigerian government's computer systems.
A month or so later, she contacted me to send her $200,000, saying she needed computer parts to finish her contract with the Nigerian government. A few weeks after that, she sent me an SOS, claiming she'd been caught trying to smuggle $3 million of drugs out of the country and was put in a Nigerian jail. It cost me $200k to arrange to get her passport back, since she had a window of opportunity to flee Nigeria after claiming to have bribed Nigerian government officials.
The next I heard from her, she was in South Africa trying to claim her Bercholli painting from the IMF. We arranged to meet in Brussels to decide what we should do. Brussels was a surprise - she sent some Nigerian heavies, and I had to pay them $10k as a deposit to pay off debts she had incurred in South Africa. That was the final straw for me.
I was in the cattle business and also did contract underground mining services. Because of her, it cost me around $3 million, because I could not trade out of the debt she caused, as I neglected the cattle business and the mining contracts. I worked almost non-stop for 4 years to clear my debts. I was a very naive person who trusted everyone, as I did not look for bad things in any person I met or worked with.
Company: Katlin Mashek (romance scam)
Country: Australia
The next scheme was about her inheritance from her deceased parents. She claimed she was entitled to a painting by Bercholli, a Renaissance artist, worth $120 million. She claimed the IMF was holding the painting, and she needed to find $2,000,000 for the IMF to release it. She then told me she had a project modernizing the Nigerian government's computer systems.
A month or so later, she contacted me to send her $200,000, saying she needed computer parts to finish her contract with the Nigerian government. A few weeks after that, she sent me an SOS, claiming she'd been caught trying to smuggle $3 million of drugs out of the country and was put in a Nigerian jail. It cost me $200k to arrange to get her passport back, since she had a window of opportunity to flee Nigeria after claiming to have bribed Nigerian government officials.
The next I heard from her, she was in South Africa trying to claim her Bercholli painting from the IMF. We arranged to meet in Brussels to decide what we should do. Brussels was a surprise - she sent some Nigerian heavies, and I had to pay them $10k as a deposit to pay off debts she had incurred in South Africa. That was the final straw for me.
I was in the cattle business and also did contract underground mining services. Because of her, it cost me around $3 million, because I could not trade out of the debt she caused, as I neglected the cattle business and the mining contracts. I worked almost non-stop for 4 years to clear my debts. I was a very naive person who trusted everyone, as I did not look for bad things in any person I met or worked with.
Company: Katlin Mashek (romance scam)
Country: Australia