Episode 7: ‘Connecting the World’
Producer/Director Rolake Bamgbose
A lonely Florida woman established a Facebook romance with a man she thought was an American soldier in Iraq. It wasn’t until she had sent him tens of thousands of dollars from her and her husband’s life savings that she learned her buff, blue-eyed friend was a fake.
Online scams may be as old as the internet, but Facebook has made it easier for scammers to victimize users longing for connection, and to draft unwitting U.S. service members into their schemes. Neither the world’s largest social network nor the world’s most powerful military seem to be able to stop it.
In a special one-hour episode of “The Weekly,” our technology reporter Jack Nicas tries to track down some of these digital con artists.
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Featured Reporter
Complete Coverage
Directors of Photography Adam Beckman and Victor Tadashi Suarez
Video Editor David Herr
Senior Story Editors Dan Barry, Liz O. Baylen, and Liz Day
Producer Lizzie Blenk
Associate Producer Brennan Cusack