An Illinois widower was found dead hundreds of miles from her home after being scammed out of $1.5 million by a man she met on a dating app.
Laura Kowal, 57, had been dating a man she met on Match.com named “Frank Borg” for more than a year when her body was discovered in the Mississippi River in August 2020.
Her daughter, Kelly Gowe, received a call from a federal agent informing her that her mother had been the victim of a scam and when she tried to contact her mother, she discovered she was missing.
While trying to find clues about where her mother went, Gowe said CBS News she found records showing that Kowal Borg – who turned out to be a fake name – had transferred $1.5 million and a terrifying note.
‘I have been living a double life for the past year. It has left me shattered and shattered. Yes, it’s about Frank, the man I met through online dating. I tried many times to stop this, but I knew I would end up dead,” Kowal wrote to her daughter in a moving letter.
Laura Kowal (pictured), 57, mysteriously drowned in the Mississippi River after being scammed out of $1.5 million by a man she met online
Kowal had dated a man she met on Match.com named ‘Frank Borg’, who used the photos above
Her daughter, Kelly Gowe (right), received a call from a federal agent informing her that her mother had been the victim of a scam
On August 7, 2020, Kowal’s body was discovered near Canton, Missouri — nearly a four-hour drive from her home in Galena, Illinois — and her car was found nearly 50 miles away from her body, reported WTV.
No formal ruling has yet been made on Kowal’s manner of death, but an autopsy revealed that she died by drowning.
‘They are the scammers, they are the criminals behind those emails. It’s Frank Borg… this character. He killed my mother,” Gowe said.
“And everyone involved in this scam in any capacity, transferring money, making a phone call, hitting ‘enter’ and ‘send’ on an email, they are all responsible for my mother’s death.”
Emails shared with CBS News revealed that within weeks of their 2018 virtual meeting, Kowal and Borg shared emails in which they told each other they were in love, despite never having met in person, and he convinced her to send him money.
‘She had all those buckets full in her life, so did my mother, but there was one bucket that was missing and that was company. And that’s ultimately where we are today, and that’s why,” Gowe said.
According to her obituary, Kowal enjoyed tending her flower and vegetable gardens, participating in local golf competitions and volunteering through therapy dog work with her beloved golden doodle Effie at a nursing home.
Federal agents discovered that Borg’s photos belonged to a Chilean doctor and that his emails were traced to Ghana.
Nearly 70,000 people reported a romance scam in 2022, according to the Federal Trade Commission, a government watchdog.
Reported losses were as much as $1.3 billion and on average victims lost $4,400.
“Digital tools make it easier than ever to target hardworking Americans, and we’re seeing the effects in the data,” said Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
Romance scammers routinely set up fake social media profiles to target their victims online.
Gowe found records showing Kowal wired Borg $1.5 million and a terrifying note from her mother saying she knew she would end up dead
No formal ruling has yet been made on Kowal’s manner of death, but an autopsy revealed that she died by drowning
Kowal enjoyed gardening, competing in local golf leagues and volunteering through therapy dog work with her beloved golden doodle Effie (center) in a nursing home
They engage in a lengthy campaign – often involving hours of messaging – to build a relationship with the victim before the conversation turns to money.
In some cases, the crooks will offer an investment opportunity, or ask for money for a fake medical procedure or charitable effort.
So-called ‘pig slaughter’ scams fall into this category, where victims are essentially ‘fattened’ with a fake relationship before being ‘slaughtered’ by fraudulent investment advice.
“We really need help,” said Paul Benda, executive vice president for risk, fraud and cybersecurity at the American Bankers Association, in an interview with CNBC.
“We need the social media companies to shut down the people spreading these messages. We need law enforcement to prosecute some of these people. Unless you put a bad guy behind bars, that guy is going to keep doing what he’s doing.”