GM, Welcome Back to the Dead Drop.

No chocolates this week. No roses. No heart-shaped anything.

Instead, I need to tell you about a dead woman, a fake boyfriend, and a multimillion-dollar criminal pipeline that runs through dating apps, bank accounts in the Chicago suburbs, and concrete compounds in Southeast Asia where trafficked workers type "Good morning beautiful" at gunpoint.

It's almost Valentine's Day. And somewhere right now, someone you care about is falling in love with a person who doesn't exist.

Laura Kowal was 57. A widow. Retired healthcare executive out of Galena, Illinois. Raised a daughter. Built a life savings. Made smart decisions for decades. Then she met "Frank Borg" on Match.com, and every one of those smart decisions stopped mattering.

Frank was attentive. Consistent. He called. He texted. He said exactly what a lonely woman needed to hear, exactly when she needed to hear it. The kind of presence that fills a house that's been too quiet for too long.

Frank was also a committee. Not a person, but a rotating crew of scammers operating out of West Africa, working shifts behind one stolen photo and a script refined over hundreds of victims. Over almost two years, Laura sent nearly $2 million to "Frank." First willingly. Then under pressure. And when her accounts ran dry, the scammers didn't cut her loose. They gave her a promotion.

Laura Kowal became what we call a money mule: a victim turned unwitting criminal, setting up fake companies and opening bank accounts to move stolen money from other victims. The people who destroyed her life then used her to destroy other people's lives. Her daughter Kelly told CBS News, "They took everything away from her. My family will never get that time back."

Laura is dead. The full circumstances of her death are still under investigation.

Three people connected to the mule network that processed Laura's stolen money were sentenced in Chicago in recent weeks. Samuel Aniukwu got 10 years. Anthony Ibekie got 20, convicted on all 14 counts. And Jennifer Gosha, a former U.S. Postal Service employee and Iraq war veteran, got three years probation with six months of house arrest. Gosha had been dating Ibekie. She thought he was a Nigerian doctor. She didn't know she was laundering money. She was, by every measure, also a romance scam victim, recruited into the operation the same way Laura was recruited into sending her savings overseas: through manufactured affection.

A juror from Ibekie's trial told CBS News the most devastating part of the case was the victim statements. Four people testified about what these scams took from them, including a retired dentist in his 70s with early onset dementia who broke down crying on the stand.

This isn't a story about someone being gullible. This is a story about an industrial-scale criminal enterprise that generates billions of dollars by exploiting the one thing every human being needs: connection.

Every stat I'm about to give you is a floor, not a ceiling. Romance scam victims are among the least likely fraud victims to report. The reason is simple: shame. Try calling the FBI to say "I wired my retirement to a stranger because they said they loved me." Most people would rather lose the money quietly.

The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center logged nearly 18,000 romance fraud complaints in 2024, totaling over $672 million in losses. The FTC pegged the number higher at $823 million. The median loss per victim sits around $2,000, but that median hides the outliers. Laura Kowal lost $2 million. The average loss per victim across broader reporting runs about $15,000. That's not a bad date. That's a retirement account.

And these numbers keep climbing. The FBI's Jacksonville field office reported 550+ victims losing $22.2 million in romance scams in 2025 alone. Boston's division documented over 700 victims across four states losing roughly $20 million. Those are just two regional offices volunteering data. The national 2025 totals haven't been published yet, but the Jacksonville office said the quiet part out loud: nationwide complaints and losses in 2025 exceeded 2024.

Now here's the part that should terrify you. Traditional romance scams are increasingly merging with "pig butchering" investment fraud, where the scammer builds a romantic relationship and then steers the victim into fake cryptocurrency platforms. Investment fraud hit $6.6 billion in IC3-reported losses for 2024, nearly doubling since 2022. A huge chunk of those losses started with a text that said something like, "Hey, is this Jessica? Sorry, wrong number... but since we're chatting, what do you do?"

Total internet crime losses reported to the FBI in 2024: $16.6 billion. Up 33% from the year before. People over 60 filed the most complaints and lost the most money of any age group. The criminals have done their market research.

Here's the perspective I hear constantly, from smart people, people in security, people in finance, people who should know better: "I would never fall for a romance scam."

This is the most dangerous sentence in fraud prevention. And I need you to delete it from your vocabulary, because it's not only wrong, it's exactly the kind of overconfidence that makes you a perfect target.

Romance scams don't work because victims are stupid. They work because victims are human. Let me walk you through what actually happens inside your skull when a scammer runs their playbook.

When someone floods you with attention, compliments, and emotional intensity (psychologists call this "love bombing"), your brain dumps dopamine and oxytocin into your bloodstream. Dopamine is the reward chemical. Same one triggered by cocaine, gambling, and that little red notification dot on your phone. It makes you giddy. Energized. Hungry for more. Oxytocin is the bonding hormone. Released during intimacy, trust, deep conversation. It makes you feel safe and loyal.

Here's the kicker: when those two chemicals are running hot, your prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain that handles rational analysis, risk assessment, and threat detection, gets dialed down. Literally suppressed. The part of your brain that would normally say "wait, why does this person need $5,000 wired to Lagos" goes quiet. Not because you're dumb, but because your neurochemistry has been compromised. You can't think straight because your brain won't let you. This isn't a metaphor. This is peer-reviewed neuroscience.

Dr. Helen Fisher at Rutgers broke "love" into three neurochemical phases: lust (testosterone, estrogen), attraction (dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin), and attachment (oxytocin, vasopressin). Romance scammers skip lust entirely. They operate in the attraction and attachment phases, which are precisely the phases where human beings make their worst financial decisions. When you're in the grip of new love, your serotonin levels mirror those found in people with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Your ability to evaluate risk craters.

That's why CEOs fall for this. Doctors. Veterans. Retired federal agents. A romance scammer doesn't need you to be naive. They need you to be lonely, or even just a little bored, for long enough to let your guard down. The chemicals do the rest.

And inside those scam compounds in Myanmar and Cambodia, the workers (many of them trafficking victims themselves) are handed scripts that read like applied psychology textbooks. When to compliment. When to pull back attention to create anxiety. When to introduce the first small financial "need." When to escalate. The manipulation is more precise than any phishing email you've ever seen. This is social engineering performed by an assembly line.

Let me update your threat picture, because most people still imagine romance scams as a lone operator in a basement somewhere.

The United Nations estimates 100,000 to 150,000 people are currently held in scam compounds across Cambodia alone. Amnesty International documented at least 53 active scam centers in 13 areas of the country in 2025. Similar operations run in Myanmar, Laos, the Philippines, and expanding into parts of the Middle East and Latin America.

The U.S. Institute of Peace estimated pig butchering scams generated $63.9 billion in global revenue in 2023. Scam centers in Burma, Cambodia, and Laos produced roughly $43.8 billion of that, equal to about 40% of those three countries' combined GDP. Fraud is literally a bigger industry than the legitimate economies hosting it.

In October 2025, the DOJ indicted the Prince Group of Cambodia and its chairman Chen Zhi, tying the organization to at least ten scam compounds. The case involved over 127,000 Bitcoin (roughly $15 billion), the largest forfeiture in U.S. history. Those compounds were pulling in up to $30 million per day. In November 2025, the DOJ stood up the Scam Center Strike Force to go after these networks. FinCEN designated Cambodia-based Huione Group as a primary money laundering concern after tracing more than $4 billion in dirty money flowing through its platforms.

All of this infrastructure exists behind the message that says "I can't stop thinking about you."

Nobody is connecting these two calendars loudly enough. February isn't just heart season. It's recruitment season.

Loneliness peaks. Dating app downloads surge. People who've been putting off "getting out there" finally swipe right. The compounds have been spinning up fresh personas since January, deploying AI-generated photos, AI-polished messages, and in some cases deepfake video for victims who insist on a video call. FBI field offices warned this month that generative AI is making fake profiles dramatically harder to spot. The broken English and awkward phrasing that used to be dead giveaways? Gone.

Simultaneously, tax season floods the financial system with cash movement: refunds, payments, deposits. The FBI has specifically documented how stolen identity refund fraud (bogus tax returns filed with stolen W-2 data) generates proceeds that flow directly into accounts controlled by romance fraud money mules. This is the pipeline. Valentine's Day creates the emotional vulnerability. Tax season creates the financial cover. New mules are being recruited right now, and stolen money is being washed through legitimate bank accounts as you read this.

The victim-to-mule pipeline runs four stages. First, the hook: new profiles deployed across platforms. Second, the bond: weeks of daily communication where dopamine and oxytocin do the scammer's work. Third, the ask: small at first (a medical bill, a plane ticket), escalating fast. And fourth, the conversion: once the victim's own money is gone, the scammers pivot. "I need you to receive a transfer and forward it to my business partner." Now the victim is laundering money. They think they're helping someone they love. They're committing federal crimes.

Jennifer Gosha walked through every stage of that pipeline. A veteran, a postal worker, an honest citizen until a sophisticated criminal weaponized her need for companionship. When retired Postal Inspector Natalie Reda would warn mules they were committing crimes and needed to stop, she told CBS News the same thing kept happening: "Often, they'll keep doing it." The chemical bond is that strong.

Enough darkness. Here's how you fight back.

The 30-Day Rule. Do not send money, crypto, gift cards, or anything of value to someone you haven't met in person and spent real time with over at least 30 days. No exceptions. Not for emergencies. Not for plane tickets. If they can't meet you, they aren't who they say they are.

The Reverse Image Search. Drag any photo they send you into Google Images, TinEye, or Yandex. If that face shows up under three different names across six websites, you're talking to a fictional character.

The Live Video Test. Push for a real-time video call early. Not a clip. Not a pre-recorded message. Ask them to hold up a specific number of fingers or write your name on paper. Deepfakes struggle with spontaneous requests. If they dodge this repeatedly, that's your answer.

The Confidant Rule. Tell someone you trust about any online relationship. Not optional. Scammers isolate victims by insisting on secrecy ("Don't tell anyone yet, this is too special"). That's not romance. That's a control tactic. A friend's outside perspective is your best defense against a hijacked brain.

The Financial Firewall. Never let an online contact deposit money in your account and ask you to move it. Never open accounts or buy crypto at someone else's direction. This is mule recruitment. Full stop. It doesn't matter how many love poems they've sent. If money is flowing through your accounts on their instructions, you are breaking federal law.

The Tempo Test. Love declarations in days? Marriage talk in weeks? Financial requests inside a month? That's not passion. That's a script. Real relationships build slowly. That spark you're feeling isn't love. It's a manufactured dopamine hit.

Three assignments this week. Non-negotiable.

One. Forward this to someone you love who's single, divorced, widowed, or lonely. Not as a joke. The best Valentine's gift you can give someone is the knowledge to protect themselves.

Two. Have a real, judgment-free conversation with a parent, grandparent, or older friend about online dating safety. Ask if anyone's contacted them. Ask gently. The shame around this crime is the scammer's best weapon, and your compassion disarms it.

Three. Run a reverse image search on any online contact you're not completely sure about. Thirty seconds. If the photo's stolen, you just saved yourself thousands.

Romance scams aren't about intelligence. They're about biology. Criminals have industrialized the exploitation of human attachment, building billion-dollar operations that weaponize brain chemistry with the precision of a pharmaceutical company. They don't need you to be naive. They need you to be human.

Laura Kowal was smart, successful, and self-sufficient. She lost everything, including her life. Jennifer Gosha was a combat veteran and federal employee. She became a money mule without realizing it. A retired dentist cried on the witness stand recounting what these people stole from him.

The collision of Valentine's Day and tax season creates a perfect operational window: emotional vulnerability meets peak financial activity. Somewhere in a guarded compound in Myanmar right now, a 23-year-old trafficking victim is typing "Good morning beautiful" to a widow in Ohio because a man with a gun told them to.

This Valentine's Day, love yourself enough to verify everything.

If you or someone you know is a victim: Report to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov. Contact your bank immediately if funds were transferred. File with the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. There is no shame in reporting. The only shameful act belongs to the criminals.

Got a Second? Every week, 6,000+ readers open The Dead Drop before they open anything else. Fraud investigators. Security executives. Financial professionals. And a growing number of people who just got tired of being lied to. This newsletter connects the fraud you read about in headlines to the fraud that's quietly draining your accounts, your data, and your trust in every institution that's supposed to protect you. The scammers are organized. The criminals have playbooks. The institutions aren't coming to save you. We are. Know someone who's one bad click, one lonely night, or one too-good-to-be-true offer away from becoming a victim? Send them this.