Multiple Faces Detected
January 21st, 2026
Bibi is a married woman who has been with her husband for 35 years. One day, she received a random Facebook request from a man named Alex Patel. She accepted the friend request because she thought he was just another one of her colleagues. He sent her a message introducing himself and started to compliment her on how beautiful she is. He had also said that he saw her face and thought she was the most beautiful woman on Facebook he had ever seen. He felt like he needed to add her. She told him “Yes,” when he asked if she wanted to talk to him. Little did she know, she would end up being a cargo scam victim.
How Did Their Friendship Form?
They start getting to know one another, talking on a daily basis. Alex tells her that he is 49-years-old and is a second officer on the Carnival, with a 14-year-old son. Since he was a widow, he claimed that he wasn’t in a relationship with anyone. She claims that while she never developed feelings for the man, she still wanted to chat with him and didn’t think anything was wrong. He told her he didn’t like using Facebook that often and suggested they go onto WhatsApp to continue their conversations.
As their conversations continued, he would send her love poems in the morning and flattered her with his words. This made her feel strange because she liked the attention she received from the scammer even though she was married.
How Was He Able to Trick Her Out of Her Money?
Then one day, he told her he was going to Dubai for a day and wanted to get her a small gift. At first, she told him she didn’t want anything, but he kept insisting until she sent him what she wanted as a gift. She gave Alex her address so that he could send her the package, and waited for him to send a tracking code for her package. Looking back at it now, she realized that she made the biggest mistake in her life when she agreed to all of this.
She was given a tracking code to copy and paste on this parcel website, which told her where her package was and what she was receiving. The problem was that this package did not resemble a “small gift” as Alex had promised. Instead, this shipment included a parcel and a suitcase which weighed about 28 kilos (about 61 pounds). She messaged him immediately stating that she needed to talk to him right away. She asked him what he had sent to her, and he claimed that the items sent to her were going to show her how much he loved her. At this point, they have only been talking for 10 days.
How Did She Become a Cargo Scam Victim?
After this conversation happened, the parcel company contacted her claiming that she owed two payments of 950 euros (about $3,000 US dollars) in order to receive this valuable package. She paid the money to get this package, then messaged Alex immediately saying that he put her in a problematic situation because of his package. He started crying after this conversation while claiming that he had no idea this was going to happen. The parcel gave her a Turkish bank account to put her payments in, and she deposited the money into the account. She thought that she would finally receive her package and not have to pay any more money once these payments were made, but she was wrong.
A few days later, she got a message claiming that the Turkish government was suing her for $50k for money laundering and terrorism. As soon as she received this legit-looking certificate claiming that she was being sued, she became terrified because she couldn’t afford to be charged with such crimes. Because of her profession, she can’t have any type of crime on her criminal record. She was scared that police were going to go to her home and arrest her, so she gave the supposed Turkish government the money. She felt guilty because her husband didn’t know that she was giving money to anyone at all.
Bibi Knows She’s a Cargo Scam Victim, Alex Still Claims He is Innocent
Alex would contact her, claiming that they were going to get through this together while crying. He kept on claiming that it wasn’t his intention to put her in such a terrible situation. He only wanted to show he loves her with the package he sent her. However, he turned out to be a scammer as Bibi quickly researched that she was indeed a cargo scam victim. She came to Social Catfish to educate our audience, and also to receive our help figuring his identity out. The authorities are still tracking down the scammer to this day, and Bibi is still in contact with him.
Social Catfish is Here to Help
If you think you’re dealing with a scammer, if you are a cargo scam victim, or have had your pictures stolen, Social Catfish is here to help you!
If you want to be a part of our next YouTube video or blog post and share your story, now is your chance. You can educate the audience about what you have gone through and make sure no one else goes through the same thing. All you need to do is email ShareMyStory@socialcatfish.com, and we will get back to you with more details.
You can also reverse search any information you have on the cargo scammer to see who it is you’ve really been talking to. If you have their name, email address, phone number, social media username, or image you can search it up in our search bar to see if there is more information on the suspected scammer you are talking to.
