A 65-year-old girl in Japan paid the equal of $30,000 in a current on-line rip-off that defied gravity. The con artist tricked the lady into believing he was a Russian astronaut who simply couldn’t afford a ticket again to Earth, native media in Japan reported.

The pair began corresponding by way of Instagram on June 28, and the scammer claimed that he was a cosmonaut on board the International Space Station (ISS). He blamed the poor cell service aboard the orbiting house station for his lack of communication at instances. Things between them shortly escalated when the pretend astronaut professed his like to her, claiming that he would need to marry her as soon as again on Earth. Except there was one drawback, he merely couldn’t get off the ISS except he had sufficient cash for a trip again to Earth.

In order to rendezvous together with her on-line lover, the lady ended up sending him 4.4 million yen (about $30,000) in order that he might hop on a rocket and go away the microgravity surroundings behind, Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun reported. However, even long-distance love has a worth restrict, and the sufferer quickly grew uninterested in the astronaut’s rising financial calls for. After making a complete of 5 cash transfers between August 19 and September 5, she lastly reported him to the police.

The sufferer was offered on the images of house the self-proclaimed astronaut put up on his Instagram web page, and the truth that he might namedrop house companies like NASA and JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency). But all the pieces else about his story was inaccurate, beginning with the truth that the ISS has no cell service. Instead, astronauts use the so-called Space Network, a community of communications satellites and ground-based antennas, to transmit knowledge again to Earth. So, they possible don’t spend their time scrolling on Instagram. The ISS additionally doesn’t work like an airport, the place it is advisable e book a ticket to return again to Earth. Space companies like NASA pay about $50-55 million to get one among its astronauts as much as the ISS and, extra lately, personal astronauts pays for their very own tickets to board the station. That worth, nonetheless, does embody a return journey again to Earth.