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PLEASANT GARDEN — For a month, Pamela O’Leary was duped into thinking she had found her Romeo.

The 54-year-old Pleasant Garden woman met a deployed U.S. soldier online in July. He was muscular. He wrote her poetry. He said he believed in God and that faith had brought them together. 

Over dozens of late-night e-mails and online chats, O’Leary developed strong feelings for him. Maybe, just maybe, she thought, this guy was the one.

Then things got odd.

He asked her to pay a courier in Ghana $2,000 for plane tickets, a deal that would bring him — and her, by default — part of a $3 million payoff from Iraq.

O’Leary came to her senses. It was a scam.

This case is one of many, the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command said, in which people who claim to be in the military serving overseas take advantage of lonely souls online.

The perpetrator often assumes the name of a legitimate, deployed service member and takes a photograph from the Internet to create a false identity.

The scammers cruise online dating sites, looking for victims and chatting their way into their hearts before going for their wallets.

According to military officials, the scam often involves a request for money to purchase special laptop computers, international telephones and transportation fees for the deployed soldier so the relationship can continue.

The scammer asks the victim to send the money through a third party.

“We’ve even seen instances where the perpetrators are asking the victims for money to purchase leave papers from the Army or help pay for their flight home so they can leave the war zone,” said Chris Grey, a spokesman for the Army CID, based at Fort Belvoir, Va.

Grey said the scam has its roots in earlier military-type schemes that have developed over the past decade.

At the height of the Iraq war, such scams involved people seeking assistance “getting millions out of Saddam’s castle” or “getting gold out of the country.”

“They have morphed from earlier scams,” Grey said. “They have found new ways to exploit people’s emotions and steal their money.”

The scams have reached around the globe, including an Australian woman who paid $4,000 for “leave” tickets so a soldier could visit her.

Another woman took out a second mortgage and lost $28,000 over a man she never met.

According to the U.S. Army CID, they haven’t found actual members of the armed forces involved in the schemes — other than having their names and photos used online. Some scam reports have involved the names and photographs of military members who died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

CID has created task forces to investigate the cases. But the work is difficult because many scammers use untraceable e-mail addresses routed through numerous countries and Internet cyber cafes that often don’t record computer use.

Grey said the Army’s jurisdiction for such cases stops once it is shown the scammer is not a legitimate member of the military or the case goes out of the country.

“These perpetrators often come from other countries, most notably from Ghana, Angola and Nigeria,” Grey said.

“(They) are good at what they do and quite familiar with American culture, but the claims about the Army and its regulations are ridiculous.”

O’Leary became skeptical about her relationship early on, when she didn’t get direct answers to questions.

The man said he fell out of a patrol vehicle in London and needed money for prescriptions. But he couldn’t explain why the military wouldn’t pay for his treatment.

He also introduced himself to her as Staff Sgt. Mark Revera, an enlisted man.

But in a matter of days referred to himself as a captain.

He claimed to not have access to his banking and credit accounts, and he would find excuses not to call her.

There were many red flags, O’Leary said. But she pushed them aside. He wrote her love letters and poetry with the promise that he would retire and be with her.

Then he said he needed money for a courier to get $3 million out of Iraq — payment for work he and others had done for an oil company. O’Leary, the “love of his life,” was to get some of the payoff once it arrived stateside.

It was the money he promised her to build their life together. He was going to marry her because “you bring me a love I have never known before,” he said.

He pushed for her to e-mail “diplomats” who would help get the money from the oil job out of the country. She did, giving them personal information that included her phone number.

Last weekend, she pawned nearly $400 in jewelry and was looking to obtain a cash advance on her credit card. She wanted to believe him and was about to send the money.

But she stopped short.

“I was doubtful, but I was hopeful,” O’Leary said. “The more I looked at the pictures he sent, the more attracted I got. He was doing spiritual poetry, and I don’t know what book it came from, but he had all the lines that grabbed my heart.”

O’Leary has since cut off contact with the man and is trying to get her jewelry back. But she still receives harassing phone calls — more than 30 calls last weekend alone — from a man with a foreign accent demanding that she send him the money.

She wants other women to be cautious of online relationships and of men who seem too good to be true.

“I haven’t felt like that about a man in a long time and it felt good,” O’Leary said. “It felt good to feel that good and happy and joyful that somebody cared and maybe they were going to come, retire and be with me.”

Contact Ryan Seals at 373-7077 or ryan.seals@news-record.com