Anthony DiMario first fell for Oksana Stolyarenko two months ago. He was a chauffeur aged 48 in Baltimore in the United States and she was a 28-year-old in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev.
They made contact through an Internet agency and began exchanging e-mails. Although they never met, she sent him her pictures and frank, articulate e-mails. Only a month later DiMario stood in the arrivals lounge at Washington’s Dulles airport, his dreams in tatters, having wired $3 350 of his savings to Stolyarenko’s ”agent” in Kiev.
DiMario is one of hundreds of men who have fallen victim to the scams of ”e-mail brides” on the Internet, which are designed to lure Western men into parting with cash. And they are the topic of a new Hollywood film, Birthday Girl.
DiMario first sensed trouble when Stolyarenko suggested she visit him in Baltimore as a student. ”She said she needed $1 850 for visas, a flight and medical tests.” He was suspicious, but agreed when her agency, Paradise of Angels Internet Club, put him in touch with previous clients and assured him that he would recoup most of the money when Stolyarenko was granted state student benefits in the US.
”There seemed like nothing to lose, so I wired the money.” But just as Stolyarenko was due to leave Kiev, she called in a panic, saying the airline had turned her away. She had to have $1 500 in cash in ”security money” to clear US customs. ”She said the rule was new, and I had waited so long that I wired it.”
DiMario waited in vain; Stolyarenko had vanished, as had her agent. ”I began investigating and came across a site about Russian bride scams. There I found pictures of ‘Oksana’, using four aliases. The pictures she gave me were not of her, but of a popular Russian model. Oksana was a real person, but nothing like who I thought she was.”
Paradise of Angels Internet Club could not be reached for comment.
The FBI receives many complaints about these services, but others insist ”e-mail brides” are driven by more innocent desires and simply prefer the life and manners of Western men. ”They are more reliable,” said Svetlana, from Kazakhstan, who is using a dating service based in Leeds.