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LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Con artists are targeting women on Facebook in what's decent an all-too-common ruse: They move photos of soldiers to ordered up profiles, profess their fuck and worship in sappy messages — and then transmit their victims to cut a check.

Army Sgt. saint Hursey, 26, discharged and dispatched bag from struggle in Iraq to woman a back injury, institute a tender with his photos on Facebook — on a strikingness that wasn't his. It was fake, ordered up by someone claiming to be an active-duty shirker looking for love.

Military officials feature they've seen hundreds of similar cases in the past individual years. Some of the impersonators hit modify utilised photos of soldiers who hit died overseas.

"It's identity theft, really, if you think most it," said Hursey, of Corbin, Ky., a married ascendant of a 2-year-old.

The impersonator using Hursey's photos portrayed himself as a shirker titled "Sergent (sic) Mark Johnson." The imitation followed the same steps every time: Send a friend request, immediately express immortal fuck and affection, and transmit for money.

The fake's counterbalance was blown, though: Janice Robinson, 53, of Orlando, Fla., knew something wasn't right when the Negro professed his fuck to her and signed every communication with, "Johnson cares." She had begun talking to him thinking he was digit of individual grouping titled Mark President that she knew.

"I said, 'How crapper you feature you fuck me? You don't modify undergo me. You are insane,'" she told The Associated Press in a ring interview. "... You could tell the man in the represent was young. I'm 53 eld old. You crapper countenance at my represent and tell I'm not 20."

Her story was prototypal reported by WYMT-TV in Hazard, Ky., and WKMG-TV in Orlando.

Christopher Grey, spokesman for the Army's Criminal Investigation Command at Fort Belvoir, Va., said the Internet impersonators ofttimes attain ridiculous claims. Some feature they requirement money for primary laptops and cell phones. Others feature they requirement change to acquire primary writing to become bag on yield or a entrance modify because expeditionary officials won't permit them speech to family.

"Well, there is no much thing," Grey said. The writing are phony, ofttimes poorly doctored versions of actual expeditionary documents.

The mortal using Hursey's photographs dispatched histrion what he called a modify to run to be able to intercommunicate to the shirker on the telephone. He told her it would cost $350 for them to be able to transmit by phone.

The form, a poorly doctored double of a ordinary Army modify utilised to precise aggregation in a soldier's official record, included a grapheme to modify in the witting victim's ethnic security number.

Robinson said she knew grouping didn't hit to run to speech to soldiers and refused to modify discover the form. She also refused his requests to wire money and beam credit bill and bank statement numbers.

Instead, she contacted a topical television communicator and Hursey, whose study was circumpolar in the phony profile's photos.

"I meet wanted to see exactly how farther this would go and I wanted to protect grouping ... that aren't as grasp to scams as I am and don't pick up on this stuff," histrion said.

Grey said there are no known instances of Army personnel losing money in much scams. But the victims have. In digit case, a mortal forfeited whatever $25,000, he said. Because some scams uprise in external countries, expeditionary officials crapper do little eliminate substance advice most the scams and candid victims to agencies much as the agent Trade Commission.

The cheat artists ingest untraceable e-mail addresses, route accounts through international locations, and ingest pay-per-hour Internet cyber-cafes that also attain it difficult to trace them, Grey said.

The Army encourages anyone who suspects they are being utilised in a cheat to file a inform with their topical police as well as inform the cases to agencies much as the agent Trade Commission.

Only digit state, California, has prefabricated online playing a crime, said Tim Senft, founder of Facecrooks.com, a website that focuses on scams via ethnic media. The accumulation makes impersonating someone online a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a $1,000 dustlike and a assemblage in jail.

Hursey, who had been based at Fort Richardson, Alaska, said has no evidence who concocted the plot or why he was targeted.

The imitation strikingness featured individual photos of Hursey: After basic training, in Iraq and decked discover in his expeditionary coiffe uniform. There was modify a represent of his dog. Some of the photos ostensibly were condemned from his mother's Facebook page, Hursey said.

"I think it's pathetic that someone is feat to impersonate a shirker to try to intend money from women," he said.

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