Anatomy of a Scammer

When I got home this evening, I found a comment on one of my recent postings. It said:

“I’m really impressed with your profile and personality. I also admire your good sense of humor here. I don’t normally write in the comment section, but I think you deserve this compliment…I don’t want to barge into your privacy by sending you a request without your consent. Kindly add me up as a friend if you don’t mind thanks and remain blessed. Stay positive.”

The poster went by the name of Camilo Perez.

I’ve seen postings somewhat like this before, but they are most often from sexually alluring females looking to establish a relationship – which may eventually lead to asking for money for some reason. This one had all the elements of a scam, but was a bit more sophisticated than others I’d seen. I initially thought of just ignoring or even deleting the comment. Then I thought about responding back to the individual that I had found them out. But there was so much material here that I finally settled on doing a detailed analysis of this profile and seeing how many “red flags” there were in what was otherwise a quite elaborate scam.

 

Overview

At first glance, Camilo seems like a legitimate person. Her profile picture, shown here, is not elaborate or overtly sexual. She is a young woman of apparent oriental descent, shown looking over her shoulder while she is on some elaborate balcony. The round picture shows what seems to be the same person looking over a sunset on a beach somewhere.

[Camilo]

 

Her intro, shown below, is also nicely done. She appears to be some sort of senior executive of a legitimate company. She has attended (and presumedly graduated from) a university in Singapore. Some of the writing is in traditional Chinese, consistent with being from Singapore. While she states she is from Singapore, she is currently living in Toronto. She is divorced. Note that all of these are designed to make her somewhat alluring – upper class, foreign, but well traveled, available. The details behind these facts all have dates attached to them. She claims to be 38, has been divorced since 2017 – the same year that her current employment started, and the dates of her school attendance appear to be relatively consistent with that age. Well designed. But when we look deeper the problems start to appear.

[Intro]

 

Looking Deeper

First, let’s look at her name – Camilo Perez. Both the first name and last name are typically of Spanish origin. They are NOT the name of a young woman who was born and raised in Singapore. While it’s possible that Perez is the name of her former husband, individuals from Chinese culture (including Singapore) do not change their surnames when they marry. That was the first red flag to me.

I then translated the Chinese characters in her profile. She claims to be a graduate of Raffles Junior College in Singapore. That is a legitimate institution. The dates of her attendance are from August 31, 1998, to June 30, 2004. That’s six years – which is correct as Raffles provides secondary education for years 1-6 (ages 13-18). However, it is further stated on their website that it “provides secondary education for boys only from Year 1 to Year 4, and pre-university education for both boys and girls in Year 5 and Year 6.” But Camilo is a girl! Therefore, she could not have attended this institution for six years, only for two. Oops!

Next, her schooling at the National University of Singapore is listed as having started in 2003 and ended in 2008. That’s five years. But she talks in her overview of “Four years of university career…” and “I love these four years, and I commemorate these four years!” I guess the 2003 was a mistake? The Chinese characters in her overview translate to some of her course work in Communication Engineering, Computer Science and Technology, Internet, Data Analysis and Processing.

Finally, let’s look at her employment – at least the last employer which is all she lists. SafeFlex International Ltd, is a legitimate company. However, all their offices and manufacturing facilities are in India. Their website does show red dots around the world where they have sales agents. But they have NO presence in Toronto! So how is Camilo able to live there? And while Market Research Manager seems like a reasonable title for a mid-career individual, she also says that she is an “Executive President,” whatever that is. The list of top company officers on the SafeFlex website shows that all of them are Indian, and all male. And there is no such title as Executive President. Wrong place, wrong title, wrong gender. That’s three more strikes.

Six problems – and so far we’ve only gone through Camilo’s intro.

 

Facebook Accounts

Camilo’s Facebook name is Camilo Perez. But her Facebook address is zhuimeng/008. Is this an indication of who is behind this account? I thought I’d check to see what else I could find about zhuimeng.

Zhuimeng/003 is named “Mary Vigil”. Interestingly, Mary is also from Singapore, also lives in Toronto, and has the same job as Camilo. The difference is that Mary claims to have studied cloud computing at the University of Toronto. Gee, do we see a pattern here?

Zhuimeng/005 is named “Amy Jiang”. She says she’s from Wuhan, China, but lives in New York City. Although she claims to have gone to Huazhong University of Science and Technology, her description of her four years there is identical to Camilo’s. A coincidence? I think not.

Zhuimeng/009 is named “Merry Wood”. She also says she is from Singapore and studied at Raffles Junior College (for 7 years), then went to NUS (a classmate of Camilo’s), then further studied at the University of Toronto (a classmate of Mary’s). She works for Flex International (a competitor of SafeFlex International)?

Zhuimeng/010 is named “Amy Cobos”. Her intro is identical to Camilo’s.

Gee, five young ladies of Chinese origin, all now living in North America, all with university educations, all either single or divorced, all with technology positions at reputable companies. Must be a coincidence!

If I were Zhuimeng, I’d have trouble keeping all of these profiles straight.

 

Postings and Pictures

The posts and pictures on all five of the above accounts follow the same pattern. The first post was made about six months ago. Most of the pictures are of food – usually in exotic restaurants. There are few if any pictures with Amy/Mary/Camilo/etc. in them. Each account has at least one picture of a pet – usually a dog. I went through and most of the pictures are unique to that account. However, “Mary” and “Amy Cobos” both own the same dog! And there may be other accounts maintained by this same person that I have not found. But let me comment on a few from just Camilo’s account.

Here are several of the food pictures posted to this account. There is no identification of where/when they were taken, although obviously there is a date on the posting.

[Food pictures]

 

I did find a few things about them. First, the picture pair with the wine bottles was posted twice – a month apart. That looks like a mistake on the part of Zhuimeng. The bottle of wine shown is a fairly expensive bottle – several hundred dollars – and is meant to convey some of the “upper class” tastes of Camilo. The one with the meat and cheese is from someone else’s social media account (thanks, Google image search) and the title that Camilo posted with the picture is similarly stolen from that same other posting. Thus, these are NOT ones that “she” took.

I also searched for copies of the below image collection meant to show how Camilo was educated as she reads a lot. All four of the pictures can be found elsewhere on the Internet. So “she” is not really a reader either!

[Book pictures]

 

Finally, I looked at the below picture of a nicely set table taken in a restaurant high above the city. I’ve done enough world travelling, including to both Singapore and Toronto, that I could tell that it was not taken in either of those cities. Zooming in, I was pretty sure that it was St. Paul’s Cathedral across the Thames River in London and a quick use of Google Maps confirmed that it was. When I then used Google’s image search it immediately noted that the picture was taken from the hotel called the Shard, which I had already identified on the map. There were other pictures posted just a few days later that I identified as being in New York City. I guess Camilo’s job as “Executive President” must pay pretty well as she gets around a lot and can stay in pricy hotels!

 

Friends

It should be pretty obvious that all of these accounts are meant to attract individuals to become friends of these “girls”. Zhuimeng has been at this for about six months (based on the earliest postings). And the comment on my posting indicate that this “fishing” is still going on. So, is it yielding any benefits?

Neither “Amy Cobos” nor “Amy Jiang” have any friends/followers. No one has made any comments on any of their postings, nor has anyone “liked” any of their pictures. However, the other three accounts are beginning to get some interest. “Mary Vigil” has attracted four people, “Merry Wood” has attracted three, and “Camilo Perez” has attracted four. That’s nearly a dozen people (nearly all men) who have fallen for these fake accounts and have liked the postings or even commented on them.

 

Summary

This is only the tip of the iceberg. Fake accounts like these may outnumber the real ones. I was only able to identify these because I know enough about how account names work and took the time to track down all the zhuimeng accounts.

The moral of the story – be vigilant! Don’t believe the things that you find. Don’t make “friends” with people you don’t know. And don’t give away personal information. Thus far it appears that these five accounts detailed here are only at the friend gathering stage. But who knows what the ultimate intention of zhuimeng is. Or what private messages he may have already sent to those dozen or so friends he has already gathered.