Catriona MacPheeBBC Disclosure
Police Scotland
Christopher Harkins was jailed for 12 years
A mother of two says she was left penniless after giving her savings to Tinder predator Christopher Harkins in a fake investment scam.
The pair matched on the dating app in London in 2020. Caitlyn – not her real name – told how the fraudster and rapist initially tried to talk her into going on holiday with him – a regular ruse of Harkins, now 38.
When she said she couldn’t afford a holiday, he offered to “help” by doubling what money she had via his foreign currency exchange business.
She’s one of four women the BBC is aware of who were targeted by Harkins in the capital – where he fled to after his crimes were exposed in Scotland.
Caitlyn is one of half a dozen women who shared their traumatic, and often bizarre, experiences with one of Scotland’s most prolific romance fraudsters in new BBC Disclosure podcast: Matched with a Predator.
Introducing Matched With A Predator
She said: “At the start I thought he was very gentlemanly. He was being flash with money.
“He was telling me his business was doing very well and making lots of money. He said he could help me to raise money.”
Harkins used the fake name Christopher Telfer when speaking to Caitlyn, who had recently split from the father of her two young children.
She sent him £3,132 in total. “This money was so precious to me,” she said.
“I felt very vulnerable at the time because of my situation and he kept offering to invest my money and make more from it. I was naïve. He said to me that whatever money I had, I could send it to him. He wanted to help me.”
When Caitlyn began asking for the money back, Harkins told her his bank account had been frozen.
He insisted she had to give him more, in order to get the initial investment back.
Caitlyn said: “I was g
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