Bangkok: An Australian grandmother facing execution on drugs charges in Malaysia could be the victim of a military romance scam that has entrapped thousands of people.
Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto, 51, has told how her supposed fiance - a US soldier serving in Afghanistan she met on-line - asked her to carry a bag containing documents relating to his retirement on a flight from Shanghai to Kuala Lumpur.
She says the bag was handed to her by an unknown person at the last minute when she left for Shanghai airport in a taxi.
But under a scam the US army warns has become an "epidemic", fraudsters use the fake or stolen identities of soldiers serving overseas to promise "true love" before duping their unsuspecting victims in a number of different scams.
The Good Weekend reported last month on American soldiers who have become unwitting stooges for West African online scammers, using their images to lure Western women looking for love.
Queensland woman Tracee Douglas lost $80,000 to a man claiming to be an Afghanistan-based US marine who contacted her on a dating site.
A photo and profile of the well-built, tattooed military man and motor-bike enthusiast appeared a match made in heaven for 49 year-old Ms Douglas, a former teacher and beautician.
Ms Douglas has set-up a Facebook page that has 400 members who track, trick and bait fraudsters.
Mrs Pinto Exposto is facing execution by hanging after being charged with carrying a bag containing 1.5 kilograms of methamphetamines, the drug known as "ice."
Dozens of Australian women have been targeted in sophisticated scams where they think they have fallen in love with soldiers when in fact they are being set-up by perpetrators who break their hearts, victims groups, police and consumer advocate agencies say.
Investigators say Malaysia, where Mrs Pinto Exposto arrived on December 7, has become an epicentre for online-based crimes perpetrated mostly by Africans using false identities, US officials say.
Mrs Pinto Exposto's lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah told Fairfax Media he believes she is innocent and the "pretty bizarre" circumstances that led to her arrest need to be fully investigated.
"She is a woman with strong credentials. She has not wavered in her story," he said.
The arrest of Mrs Pinto Exposto, a former social worker in East Timor, has shocked her family and friends in Sydney where they say she was a devoted and loving mother of four.
She has told her lawyers she was surprised when the drugs were found sewn into a secret compartment in the bag, telling them she had "never seen drugs in her life."
Mrs Pinto Exposto and her husband had separated and were intending to divorce, according to lawyers, before she travelled to Shanghai without telling key family members.
Defence lawyers have signalled they will argue that Mrs Pinto Exposto's willingness to put her bags through a security scanner at a Kuala Lumpur airport exit channel without being asked by Customs officials indicates she had no prior knowledge of the presence of any drugs.
She was booked on a connecting flight to Melbourne and could have stayed in the airport's transit areas without having to pass through the security check-point.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission warns that scammers targeting Australians will go to "great lengths to gain your interest and trust, such as sharing personal information and even sending you gifts."
"Scammers may take months to build what seems like the romance of a lifetime and may even pretend to book flights to visit you, but never actually come," the commission says on its scamwatch.gov.au website.
The commission warns of dozens of scams including those involving dating and romance, identity theft, get-rich investments, money transfer, jobs and employment.
Fraudsters often personalise scams to fit the profile of their victims.
Cyber-crime investigators suspect that people duped in romance scams are increasingly being used as drugs mules but most of the crimes never become public.
A Sydney investigator told Fairfax Media that if Mrs Pinto Exposto has been set-up in a military romance scam she "probably will still not realise she has been scammed by her fiance as she will still be in love with him and will not be able to separate the truth from the illusion even if she did suspect her lover."
Often scammers use fake webcams, voice changing programs and photographs of other people to build a false identity and then prowl the internet for victims.
Victims of military romance scams are usually unsuspecting women aged 35 to 50, many of whom are lonely and vulnerable who think their loved one is serving in a combat zone.
Air Marshall Mark Binskin, the 54 year-old married head of the Australian Defence Force, had his identity stolen by fraudsters trying to scam money out of a German woman which prompted a Defence Force investigation in June.
In Malaysia, where Mrs Pinto Exposto will be hanged if found guilty of possessing more than 50 grams of methamphetamines, the US embassy warns that scams there are more sophisticated than most well known Nigeria-based operations.
Tim Scherer, consul general of the US embassy in Kuala Lumpur, told Reuters that complaints about scams make up 80 per cent of inquiries to duty officers at the mission, with dozens of new cases reported every week.
Citizens of Australia, Canada and Europe have also been targeted, he said.
"It can really transform their lives in a very terrible way."
One typical scam is for middle-aged woman to be targeted on dating or Christian websites by fraudsters claiming to be a Western man who then gets into legal or business difficulties in Muslim-majority Malaysia.
The US Army Criminal Investigation Command has told US serviceman that although the US has set-up numerous task force organisations to "deal with this growing epidemic" the people committing the crimes are using untraceable e-mail addresses, routing through numerous countries and utilizing cyber cafes which maintain no accountability of use.
"The ability of law enforcement to identify these perpetrators and close down their operations is very limited," it says.
