PRETORIA – The man dubbed “the South African Tinder Swindler” will hear his fate this morning, in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court regarding whether he gets released on bail as he applied.
Amon Namara, who allegedly conned at least three women out of their money, has been charged with fraud, money laundering and theft. Last week, the 39-year-old Ugandan appeared in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court and was remanded in custody.
The self-proclaimed businessman and social media influencer had allegedly been running his operating in Sandton using techniques similar to the now internationally notorious Simon Leviev in Netflix hit documentary, the ‘Tinder Swindler’.
At his first court appearance on February 25, the State alleged that Namara conned at least three wealthy women out of their money.
Namara has allegedly made off with jewellery, clothes, and thousands of rand from swindling the well-to-do women in South Africa.
He matched with his unsuspecting victims on the popular dating app Tinder. Posing as a millionaire who owned a Bentley and several properties in Joburg, Namara would take his partners on whirlwind dates before syphoning off large sums of money from them.
After Namara’s arrest at Sandton, an alarming number of women have also taken to social media, detailing their “romance fraud” scams and highlighting safety concerns around online dating.
A mother-of-two who spoke out after she was duped, said after coming out of a “stressful” relationship, her friend signed her up for the popular dating app. When she matched with Namara on the app, he quickly asked for her phone number and they met for lunch at her home. She described him as a “sweetheart”.
“In August 2020, he told me that he was having some problems and he asked for R15 000. He said he’d repay it by the weekend,” she said.
In total, she was conned out of R52 000 but he also made off with stock worth more than R60 000 from her boutique. One of the items was a Rolex watch worth R10 000.
Namara had promised another woman a trip to Knysna, but said he needed money to make the booking. She allegedly forked out R16 000, but to her surprise, Namara left her stranded at the airport. After sharing her frustrations on social media, other women came forward with similar experiences.
“I found information about him and he said I should go ahead and open a (criminal) case against him if I wanted to. He said he didn’t care and would buy the docket (from the police),” said the unnamed woman.
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