A 35-year-old man in Limassol was conned out of over 50,000 euros in an online scam, police said on Sunday.

The victim met a woman online in November 2021 who introduced herself to him as a former prime minister of a third country.

During their email correspondence, the woman allegedly told him that her bank accounts were frozen and asked for his help.

She would send him GBP £50,000 to keep for her and he would send her cash when she needed it in exchange for the 35-year-old getting a commission of GBP £2,000.

After giving him the runaround under various pretexts such as expenses, customs duties etc, she convinced him to send her different amounts over the course of the past eight months through various bank accounts.

It total, he transferred 53,357 euros. The last money transfer he made was on July 7 ostensibly for the woman’s air tickets to go to a foreign country to settle the issues with her bank accounts.

After that he was contacted by another party close to the woman, saying she had been arrested by Interpol and more money was needed for her release. It was only then he became suspicious and went to police.