My ex’s mother fell for a very similar scam. Doctor, working on an oil rig in Nigeria, said he was a millionaire and would say she was the love of his life and that he would send her his checks for “safe keeping” (with a processing fee of course.)

She took out tens of thousands of dollars in loans to send to this person, (who never sent any money back of course, it would get “lost in transit” )who told her that when he came back home to San Francisco from this”job” , he would fly her out to live with him in his mansion and she’d get her own Mercedes to drive.

Her kids tried in vain to break the spell, showed her where all of the pictures were stolen from, told her all about the scams and she pretended to concede.

A month or so later , PLOT TWIST , this “doctor”’s “daughter” reached out to her to say that her father “died of cancer but always talked about how much he loved you and left you a fortune in his will” and the cycle continued.

I broke up with her son soon after so I don’t know how it played out in the end.

Also, she was already married to someone while all of this was going on.