A Victim of Romance Fraud Loses $35,000 & is Heartbroken!

On August 21, 2025 we received a one sentence email from a 68 year old woman from an east coast state whom we will call “Debbie,” to protect her identity. Debbie simply asked if she “can tell someone about the scammer I met on the Bumble app.” Of course, we said yes. Over the course of the next few days, and weeks of processing what Debbie shared with us, we learned that this woman had been severely manipulated in multiple complex schemes for more than two years! During that time, she had given a romance scammer about $35,000 of her own money and had helped him launder at least another $6,000 more, by her estimate. He wanted her to launder a lot more money, but she refused to help him. In addition to the terrible emotional and financial harm that she has suffered by her two year relationship with this blood-sucking leech, Debbie’s relationship with her daughter has suffered terribly. She has also had multiple back accounts and credit cards closed, likely causing her credit score to plummet as well. Remarkably, and perhaps reflecting an amazing inner strength and perseverance, Debbie wants us to share her story so that others may learn from it. As she told us recently, “I don’t want another woman to go through what I suffered.”  Exactly how Debbie was manipulated by a man she knew as Peter Ari Fenwick is very complex, with many different moving parts. In this featured article we share most of them. Let’s start with a chance meeting on Bumble and his first scheme…

In the summer of 2023, as a single, retired Nurse of age 66, Debbie had created a couple of accounts on dating services, such as Match and Bumble. She told us that she specifically chose Bumble because it was run by a woman and that men were supposed to reach out first from their “verified” accounts. (Bumble was first founded in 2014 by Whitney Wolf Herd, after leaving Tinder. Source: Wikipedia. Unfortunately, and according to many sources, it is still very easy to create fake “verified” accounts on dating services such as Bumble. For example, this source: The Match Artist: Bumble Fake Profiles.)  A man identified as Peter Ari Fenwick from New Zealand, but now living in Boston, reached out to Debbie on August 16, 2023. Debbie said they texted for 3-4 days before she felt comfortable and gave him her phone number. Then he started calling her from a US phone number. Peter Fenwick said he was age 62, and a “calmbloke” from New Zealand, but now lived on 1 Dalton Street, Boston, MA 02115 at the very fancy Four Seasons Private Residences.

Peter’s photos show him as an older man with long hair, beard and mustache. He appears to have at least three tattoos, one on his left calf (above photo) and the other two on his arms. (Seen in the photos below.) We have not been able to locate this man’s photos using either a Google reverse image search or TinEye.com. If you recognize this man, or any of these photos, please contact us at romance-fraud@thedailyscam.com. Peter Ari Fenwick claimed to be an architect with a website at the domain fenwickrestorationconsult.net. This domain was first registered via Wix on September 20, 2022 and then expired a year later, and was re-registered within days, until September 20, 2024. It appears to have lapsed since that date. We used the Internet’s WAYBACK Machine website to search for screenshots of the fenwickrestorationconsult.net website, but found none. Though the Wayback archive had a total of 8 screenshots taken between September 27, 2023 and September 7, 2024, they each showed a Wix support message saying “Looks like this domain isn’t connected to a website yet.” We’ve found no evidence whatsoever of a website for this supposed Architect’s business at fenwickrestorationconsult.net.

Just a few days after meeting Peter Fenwick on Bumble, Debbie received a rather lengthy and personal email from him via his email account Peter.Ari.Fenwick@outlook.com.  About this email (see below) Debbie said “looking back on it now, it seems kind of weird. He first started talking about his parents, and how he brought his mother to the United States for treatment for uterine cancer. And he knew I was a nurse. And then he told me about his father, who had lung cancer and died of that when he was a teenager.”  Debbie thought this was particularly coincidental because she had also lost her father to cancer.  She also said that she’s never posted anything about her personal loss on social media or anywhere else online. So it felt like a remarkable coincidence to her that they shared this type of loss in common. She didn’t see how he could possibly have known this in advance. We know that the most skilled romance scammers likely research their targeted victims. Peter Fenwick knew her nickname and her last name. However, when we Googled these names together, we easily found that she is a retired Nurse from an Eastern state and has a LinkedIn account. We therefore think it is possible that this scammer may have researched enough information about her to help him create a story that would connect with her. Even if he didn’t, the overwhelming majority of romance scammers create a fictional narrative meant to elicit a compassionate response from their targets. These narratives are typically filled with hardship and loss. This is clearly spelled out in his lengthy email below. Also, notice that though he lists his Architectural business address in Manukau, Auckland, New Zealand, he never includes a street address! Manukau is a city in New Zealand. (Source: Wikipedia) Also, the New Zealand Government provides a website to look up businesses registered in New Zealand. We found no record whatsoever on their business directory website for Fenwick Restoration Consult Limited.  (NOTE: Debbie spoke to Peter over the phone many times during her 2-year long victimization by this fraudster. She told us that he had an accent, perhaps a little like an Australian accent. She admitted that she doesn’t really know what a New Zealand accent sounds like.)

Keep in mind that literally all romance scam victims we have spoken to have reported how quickly these scammers appear to accelerate their love for, and emotional connection to their targeted victim. This was also true for Debbie. In an August 22 morning email to Debbie, Peter Fenwick’s subject line is “GOOD MORNING BEAUTIFUL” and he ends it with “Warmest wishes.” He tells her that he wanted to wish her a fantastic day, and proceeds to reap lots of “positivity” on her, meaning that he is executing his grooming tactics. Again, the very next morning of August 23, Peter Fenwick sends another email filled with deceptively, overly sweet lies such as “I want to take a moment to express my gratitude for the beautiful connection we’ve forged. Our friendship is a precious gift, and I believe it holds the potential for something truly special. In the short time we’ve known each other, I’ve come to appreciate your authenticity, your laughter, and the genuine conversations we share. It feels as if we’ve known each other for a lifetime, and that fills my heart with hope and excitement for what the future may hold.” Keep in mind that this is literally just one week after meeting him on Bumble! Given these gussy words draped in all his communications to Debbie, it’s easy to understand how a low-life, blood-sucking bastard such as this man is able to manipulate an older, single woman looking for companionship. 

By August 27, 2023, Peter Fenwick was calling Debbie “sweetheart” and “darling.” On August 26th he had said “Much love for you darling” And then, on September 4 Peter wrote to her “I love you and see you soon my love.”  Debbie, however, was no fool. She told us that these gushing remarks felt very uncomfortable to her, and even odd. She said to Peter “why do you send me these love bomb emails, I hardly know you and you don’t know me.” She informed us that she didn’t talk on the phone that much with Peter at that time. Most of their communication was via email. When she asked him why he said these things, he said “Well I just know we have a connection and I love you.” Again, this is all part of the grooming that a romance scammer uses to manipulate his victim. Debbie also told us that during her two year relationship with Peter, they had only three video chats over Skype. In their first video chat, as a safety precaution, she asked him to stand up, turn around and touch his hair, to assure herself that this was a real person. She also told us that she conducted a reverse image search in Google for the photos he sent her. Everything about him seemed legitimate to her. Before you judge too quickly, keep in mind that the deep need humans have to connect to someone is part of our genetic psyche! Also, loneliness can be very troubling for most people. These human tendencies, particularly amongst older people, can make a romance scammer’s efforts that much harder to resist. And such was the case with Debbie.

In late August of 2023, about 2 weeks after meeting this scammer as Peter Ari Fenwick, he began to implement his schemes to trick Debbie into giving him money. As is often the case with romance fraud, he told her that he was preparing for a work project in Cyprus as an Architect. This required him to travel there for some period of time, of course. Peter’s first trick was a small ask to see how well his emotional manipulation of his victim was working. Soon after Peter arrived in Cyprus, he asked Debbie for $500 to help him pay for his Cyprus architect license. Though we don’t know the exact reason why he said he needed Debbie’s money instead of his own, we’ve heard many similar scam stories in the past. For example, a fraudster claims to have poor or spotty internet access and can’t access his bank. Or he’ll claim there is some security issue preventing him from accessing funds in his bank from the country or location he is in. And unfortunately, Debbie sent him the money via Gift Card numbers. She later said “Now as I talk about this with somebody, I was really stupid doing these things.”  Multiple times, we have urged her not to blame herself! She is the victim of this fraud, and a human being. We all make mistakes. That is part of being human! And scammers take full advantage of people’s kindness, compassion and mistakes.

Now that this scammer knew he could manipulate Debbie for $500, he executed a much larger scheme. Experience has shown us that every romance scammer needs an emergency narrative to act as a trigger for requiring immediate financial help from their targeted victim. For Debbie, Peter’s next crisis was less than a week after arriving in Cyprus. At the end of August he had shown Debbie his new contract with Korman Construction. He claimed to have been waiting for this project to be accepted by a General in the Cypriot Armed Forces. Coincidentally, they were planning to meet in Atlantic City, NJ early in September, 2023. But in a perfectly untimely fashion, Peter Fenwick’s contract with a company called Korman Construction, and the Cypriot General, was accepted. He suddenly had to cancel his plans to meet Debbie, and instead, fly to Cyprus to meet with the General about the project. Once there, Peter Fenwick also told Debbie that he was told to hand in his phone and computer to the General, likely for security reasons. He was instructed to use a new phone given to him by the General. That’s also when Peter Fenwick asked Debbie to download WhatsApp on her phone and use it to communicate with him. This was a lie, of course. Romance scammers often come up with reasons why they are suddenly using a new phone number or email account. These phone/email changes are another serious red flag warning that the person you are communicating with is not who they claim to be! By December 10, Peter’s email had also changed to peteafenwick@outlook.com.

Debbie told us “When he got to Cyprus, one night he called me because he was scared. A wall had broken down where he was doing construction and he found guns and all this stuff. Then he found out that the General was not a nice person, and was laundering guns.”  Peter also told Debbie that his interpreter, a man named Murat Ibrahim, also confirmed that the General was not a nice man. (Quite a drama, right?!) Peter told Debbie that he wanted to finish up his project quickly and come home. But when he went to pay for materials that he had ordered from China and delivered to Cyprus, the price had gone up significantly due to tariffs. He couldn’t afford to pay for the sudden increase because he didn’t have the extra money in his bank account. And, he claimed, he could only refill his debit card account from New Zealand, not Cyprus. [This is, of course, ridiculous and a lie! Not to mention that he had also been living in Boston, MA. Why didn’t he have a bank there?] He then asked Debbie for $15,000 to help him pay these unexpected port fees so he could then complete the project and quickly get out of Cyprus. She sent that money to him via bitcoin, as he requested. Asking anyone for Bitcoin as a method of payment is another very serious red flag!

In support of his claims, Peter Ari Fenwick sent Debbie an email and several attached documents, including an official document from the Cyprus government about the equipment seizure due to the unpaid tax. This email was sent on September 5, just 3 weeks after meeting him! Debbie paused in her story and said “Oh my God, Oh my God. The calling everyday, and the love bombing totally manipulated me.” When you read the “Department of Customs” notice in the image below, note the following serious red flags that identify his claim as a fraud…

1. The document says that Peter Ari Fenwick is not allowed to leave the country unless and until the clearance fee of $16,489.00 is paid to Customs. This is absurd! Yes, the government can seize these materials. However, research tells us that “unpaid tariffs” are a Civil matter. “Under Cypriot law, unpaid tariffs are treated as a civil debt and are not, on their own, grounds for a travel ban.” (Source: Google AI)
2. Since 2008, the official currency of Cyprus has been the Euro. Why would this, supposedly official document, use the symbol and currency for the US Dollar and not the Euro?
3. The Cargo Director’s name on this document is shown as Hayrettin Eker. The signature above it doesn’t match this name at all. It’s not even close!
4. At the bottom of this official document is a red stamp. However, that red stamp has no markings on it to connect it with Customs or the country of Cyprus. We found this exact red stamp graphic on a Quebec website: https://quebec-en-ligne.quebec/fiches/me-louis-jacques-saindon-notaire-saint-jerome/  This fact supports our contention that this digital document is fake.

Finally, the date shown on the signed Korman Construction contract that Peter Fenwick had received, and shared with Debbie, was August 30, 2023. The date on the seizure document below from Cypriot Customs that Peter emailed to Debbie was September 5, less than a week later. With the contract signed just six days earlier, how is it even possible that Peter Fenwick was able to place an order for material coming from China, AND have that material show up at the Cyrprus Customs in just 6 days? That, of and by itself, means this entire story is complete BS!

By mid-September, about one month after meeting Peter Ari Fenwick, Debbie felt like she couldn’t fully trust him. She had even called him a con man. She said that “this was from a feeling in the pit of her stomach” and she wishes she had cut her ties with him completely. In fact, after sending him her own $15,000, she felt taken advantage of. She told us that she didn’t talk to him for a whole month. But a month later, Peter Fenwick started calling, emailing and love-bombing here again, as she calls it.

This was not the final crisis that Peter Ari Fenwick claimed to have, and for which he needed Debbie’s help! Not long after this Customs problem, he claimed to have a falling out with the General because of the illegal guns that he had found hidden behind a wall. Sometime in the Fall of 2023, Peter told Debbie that he had actually fled working for the General in Cyprus. He was now supposedly living on the streets of Cyprus and trying to avoid the General. Several times he would ask Debbie for money so he could stay in a hotel, and she would send it to him, all via Bitcoin. Eventually, Peter told Debbie that his interpreter, Murat Ibrahim, was able to smuggle him out of Cyprus and into Turkey. However, once in Turkey, Debbie learned that Peter Fenwick was accosted and then picked up by Customs for entering the country illegally! He was placed in some minimum security Customs detention center where, he said, he was still able to use his phone. This is also complete nonsense. According to several articles, including this article on ResidencePermitinTurkey.com, when Customs arrests people in Turkey, their phones are confiscated. According to Peter, Murat Ibrahim then helped him get a lawyer in Turkey. (This is another lie!) His new lawyer asked Peter about accessing his money in his bank accounts, of course. But Peter told Debbie that he had no computer to do that and so he asked Debbie to send an email on his behalf to his bank, called Finologee Assets, via his account. He gave Debbie the bank account access so she could also transfer money from his account to his interpreter/friend, Murat Ibrahim.

But this was just another chapter in this scammer’s story. First of all, though there is a legitimate Finologee Assets firm based in Luxembourg, it is not a bank. Peter Fenwick’s fake Finologee Assets Bank was registered using the domain finologeeassets.com. This domain was registered on July 28, 2023, using cybercriminal’s favorite Registrar, Namecheap. This was less than three weeks before Debbie met Peter on Bumble. This domain was suspended in less than a year, very likely because of fraud-related activities. In the graphic below you’ll see that Peter is providing his login information via a text from his phone number in Turkey. He now has a new Outlook email address as well. Look carefully at the information that Debbie captured in the personal information of Peter’s Bank account. Can you spot the word that identifies this entire bank as HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS? It is not a word commonly used for the purpose you see it. (Since scammers often read our articles and try to learn how to improve their scams, we prefer NOT to point out this exact word.) By the way, in the personal details below, Peter Fenwick is now listing his address as the Four Seasons Private Residences in Denver, CO on 1133 14th Street.

When Debbie logged into Peter’s Finologee Assets Bank account, she saw that he had a lot of money. That’s when she sent an email to this bank from inside his account and asked if they could help her help Peter transfer this money. However, when Debbie tried to make this transfer, she was told by a bank employee named Morris Anderson, that she had to pay $13,000 in bank fees. But instead of paying these fees from the funds in Peter’s account, he said that she had to pay them from an outside account, such as her own bank account! (Also complete nonsense! We’ve seen this trick use many times in the past by the Zimbabwe Scammer.)  She said she didn’t have the money and she could not pay those fees from her own personal funds. Debbie told us that this Morris Anderson used an email address from the domain accountant.com. We told her that “accountant.com” is a domain used for free email accounts through services like Mailspring. This domain, like lawyer.com, is used almost exclusively by scammers!

Debbie continued to be angry with Peter, and yet felt that she would be drawn back to him. After he made amends with Debbie, things seemed to calm down for a bit. However, he was now supposedly living off the streets in Turkey. Another part of his manipulation of Debbie concerned an injury. Peter said he had been in a street fight, along with his interpreter, Murat. The interpreter had been shot and Peter had been knifed in the leg. And then his wound got infected. So he had been in a hospital and needed help paying his hospital bills, of course. Debbie would ocassionally send him money but in smaller amounts, such as $50 – $100. Read these two texts that this scammer sent to Debbie during this time. They are exceptionally manipulative! It makes it easier for readers to understand the deep emotional pressure that this bastard was putting on her.

Fast forward now to the Fall of 2024. Peter Fenwick had told Debbie that he got a job working as an architect in Turkey. He also told her that he now had a new lawyer and this new lawyer was able to work out a deal with the Turkish government that would allow him to fly home. However, he was told that he had to be accompanied by a Turkish guard and the cost for this was for $575. Of course he asked Debbie to pay this fee and she did, via Bitcoin again…

Early on in their relationship, Peter Ari Fenwick had sent Debbie, via texts, three pictures of his New Zealand Passport. We’ve put these photos together, and rotated them to try to assemble his passport into the best viewable presentation. It is exceptionally well crafted! There is only one serious sign of fraud that we can find on it. It is the “Signature of Holder” found at the bottom of the top half of his passport. The signature clearly doesn’t say Peter Fenwick! It appears to read “T Holke,” or something like that. This fake document was so well crafted, we wondered how easy it might be to actually purchase a fake passport online rather than have someone try to create it via Photoshop. Remarkably, we found exactly such a site called BuyRealDocsOnline.com. This site was registered recently on July 16, 2025. And yes, they sell fake New Zealand Passports! (This site’s products are exceptionally illegal!) Therefore we think it may be possible that the scammer behind Debbie’s fraud actually purchased a fake passport to support his fraud instead of using Photoshop to produce one.

A very weird thing also happened to Debbie in late October of 2024 regarding Peter. It’s bizarre! Debbie doesn’t fully understand it and neither do we. On October 6, 2024 Debbie got a text from someone who said he was the REAL Peter Ari Fenwick, and that the man Debbie had known for over a year was a phony. This text came from a different, unfamiliar Whatsapp number than the Peter she knew.This other Peter even called Debbie to tell her this over the phone. This scared Debbie terribly and made her feel as though she couldn’t trust anything related to this man! She called the first Peter whom she had known, and been sending money to for more than a year, and told him he was a scammer. He said he wasn’t and that the other guy was trying to scam her! This first Peter also said that he wasn’t able to talk to Debbie for several weeks because he had been in a car accident in November, 2023. That’s when the first Peter sent Debbie pictures of himself in the hospital. Honestly, the details about Peter #2 are unclear to us.

Also in 2024 and 2025, this horrible leech tried to manipulate Debbie into helping him move money through various accounts of hers. Essentially, he was tricking her to launder money through these transactions. Ultimately, the few transactions that she agreed to use for him cost her dearly. He would have someone send her money and she would send it somewhere else. She lost banking and credit card accounts as a result of helping this sleazebag move money illegally. For example, in 2024 Peter asked her to open a Charles Schwab account to help him with some other issue. He also wanted the account to have another person’s name and  access to it, a man named Fidelis. (We told her that this sounds like he was trying to involve her in money laundering.)  Debbie said that after logging into this new Charles Schwab account she saw that it had received $96,000! This felt very uncomfortable to her. She decided she was not going to continue to help Peter with this account. She called Schwab support and said that she wanted to stop all transactions from her account and to have her name removed. She didn’t know who the 2nd person was that also had access to this account. Sadly, as angry as Debbie was with Peter for pushing her to do this, she said she forgave him.

Even as late as April of 2025, Peter asked Debbie if she had any other financial accounts that allowed for Zelle transfers. She did have another bank account but she refused to give him any information about this account and didn’t want him to move any money into it. She did say, however that she had a Credit Karma account, though she never used it. Peter sent her a screenshot showing that he tried to transfer $5000 into her Credit Karma account, plus a $25 fee. But she never received the deposit in her account, nor received any notification from Credit Karma. When she asked Peter why he sent her this money, he said that he was working on a project in Qatar and needed her to forward those funds to an account for him there. This is LITERALLY a clear cut example of money laundering!

Peter Ari Fenwick’s continued manipulation of Debbie to receive and send money to and from various accounts continued for months, up until August of 2025. Much of the details about his effort to get Debbie to launder money are confusing because Debbie wasn’t able to remember all the details of all transactions. Over two full years of being manipulated by this scammer, we wondered why many suspicious red flags had not stopped her from continuing to engage with this man. We also wondered why her friends or family had not intervened on her behalf. We asked Debbie, for example, if any of her friends or family had interacted with Peter Fenwick over the phone and she said no. She then added that none of her friends or family, such as her daughter, even knew about him. She had kept her relationship with Peter completely private and she regrets this deeply. Perhaps her daughter, for instance, might have seen through this fraud sooner and helped her mom understand his manipulation of her. Looking back on all of this insanity, she says “something didn’t feel right, I didn’t feel like myself” throughout their relationship. She added that once she realized he was actually a scammer, something felt lifted from her chest when it was over. Believe it or not, this realization only happened recently. Debbie was so terribly confused by his stories, his reasoning and her emotional connection to this scammer, that she was unable to clearly see the insanity of how he had manipulated her to give him money and launder money. In the last two years, Debbie had sent this fraudster about $35,000 and had never received any of it back. Nor had she ever kept any of the money that Peter had sent to her and asked her to transfer to other accounts/services. By the end of the summer, 2025, many of her accounts were frozen or under investigation, including her Zelle and CashApp accounts. 

Last month we asked Debbie when was the last time she had heard from Peter Ari Fenwick. She told us it was a Whatsapp text on August 9, 2025. He said “Please, have I fucked up?” to which Debbie responded “you piece of shit!” Then Peter replied on August 14 “Alright, this has gotten out of control. Please don’t speak to me like that…. I will leave you for now but because I have to, else this downing won’t stop. I have your address and the day I do leave here you can call the police if I’m not what I am. Goodbye my gorgeous girl, I love you.” Debbie replied angrily to this message, triggering a short exchange filled with curses and references to lawyers. And then nothing more.

FOOTNOTES:

Though we have no idea who the real criminal is behind all of this fraud, we see many of the same tricks used by the Harare Zimbabwe Scammer, whom we have written multiple articles about. The Zimbabwe scammer also used Cyprus, Turkey, injuries, arrests, etc. in his scam narratives. You can read more about this man, and several of his victim’s stories, in these articles…

   A Professional Love Scammer from Zimbabwe
   Zimbabwe Romance Scammer Strikes Again!
   Meet Zimbabwe Scammer as Chanson Louis

It’s important to say that one of the reasons Debbie never wanted to share her Wells Fargo account to Peter Ari Fenwick’s money laundering efforts was because her account was also connected to her daughter’s account. Unfortunately though, both Debbie’s AND her daughter’s Wells Fargo accounts were closed as a result of the money transfers that Debbie had made on behalf of this fraudster.  She told us that she’s finally shared all of her story about Peter Ari Fenwick with her daughter, and her daughter is still very angry with her. The closure of her Wells Fargo account has also created problems with her social security income which was set up to auto-deposit to this account. 

Our readers may wonder if Debbie had contacted the police about this fraudster and his manipulation of her. She had actually filed two earlier reports with the FTC about this fraudster. But her daughter said “why bother now? You’re not going to get any of your money back!” But we disagree. We urged her to contact both the police and the FBI. Though her local police will not be able to do anything about her financial losses, it’s important to have an official report and case number. It’s important to report her loss and manipulation to the FBI, via IC3.gov, so that they can see if her experience aligns with any other investigations about this fraudster. And if not, increase their awareness of his tactics so as to protect other US citizens, or make an effort to find him if they can. We also told Debbie not to be disappointed if she hears nothing back from the FBI or the IC3 website. But it is still important to give them all of this information!