Page 7 - IAV Digital Magazine #546

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
Fake DiCaprio ‘Trapped In
Scientology' Scammed Texas
Widow Out Of Her Life Savings
By Timothy Evans
Who among us hasn't been spammed with an email from a fake "Nigerian prince" promising a multi- million dollar windfall in exchange for transferring a couple of thou- sand dollars to his bank account?
As reported by The Daily
Beast on Thursday, a Houston widow recently got swin- dled out of almost her entire life sav- ings by a fraud- ster with an even more bizarre claim. Houston area resident "Denise" sent $800,000 to a person posing as actor Leonardo DiCaprio claiming that he was "trapped" in
Scientology.
In 2016, Denise lost her husband of 28 years after a battle with colon cancer. They had amassed almost $1 million in sav- ings through a company he had built that con- structed apart- ment complexes. Two years later she decided to create a social media presence
and began follow- ing a number of celebrities, espe- cially if they were pro-environment.
"About a month after creating her account, she received her first private message through the app. It appeared to be from one of the celebrities she had followed, Leonardo DiCaprio," accord-
ing to the report.
“Hello, Denise,” she remembers the message say- ing. “So what’s your real name?” she responded. Over the next few days, she contin- ued to receive pri- vate messages from “DiCaprio." Denise quickly moved from exchanging Twitter messages to texting with the
person she thought was the actor.
“We developed a terrific friendship within a couple months and he always insisted that I call him ‘Leo,’” Denise remembers. And before long, she got to speak to him directly.
“Leonardo DiCaprio,” Denise discovered, was allegedly
being subjected to enslavement by the Church of Scientology.
On Sept. 7, Denise sent $6,000 in a wire transfer to a man named Kenneth in Woodstock, Georgia, who “Leo” said was one of his trusted aides. It was the first payment of many.
The real DiCaprio was never involved in the
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine