AFTER sharing his entire life on social media, James Blake fell victim to identity theft.
In a fight to get his identity back, he stumbled upon a world of organised crime.
INSTAGRAM/JAMES BLAKEJames Blake fell victim to identity theft and found his social media snaps being used on fake profiles[/caption]
Who is James Blake?
James Blake is an entrepreneur from Lisburn.
After gaining A-Levels at Fort Hill Integrated College, he became the founder and CEO of the global digital marketing firm VINDICTA.
In 2022, James was recognised as one of the “Top 5 young business people in Northern Ireland”.
As of October 2023, he has over 53,000 followers on Instagram.
Over on his page, you can see behind-the-scenes snaps of his latest projects and a couple of selfies.
You can find his account under the username @mrjamesblake
What happened when James Blake’s identity was stolen?
James was once living the Instagram dream until criminals copied his accounts.
It all started when he received a message to say someone had come across a fake account using his name and image – but it wasn’t his.
While he originally found it amusing, there were soon more complex profiles, using all his images with thousands of followers.
The accounts had pictures of his car, his friends, and his family.
Things started to get worse when he received messages from people who had been scammed and lost money.
The profiles were all over social media on sites including Tinder, Instagram, Facebook and Quora – even on dating sites he had never even heard of.
Nearly every day he would wake up to multiple messages from women who claimed they were “dating” him.
One fake profile on WhatsApp even sent one of the victims a snap of a counterfeit passport containing James’s personal details.
In an attempt to get his identity back, James discovered a dark modern-day crime wave where organised gangs use the latest technology to target elderly women to scam them out of money.
When did James Blake meet the victims of the scam?
During filming for his BBC Three documentary called Hunting The Catfish Crime Gang, James met some of the women who had fallen victim to the fake profiles.
Speaking about meeting one woman, he told the BBC: “I don’t get nervous very often, but when I went to the park to meet one of the victims I was really anxious – I was well aware of the impact this would have had on their life.”
His journey took him all the way to Thailand to see the millions of pounds invested into the infrastructure of these operations.
James discovered that those involved in the scams are often victims themselves, having been trafficked with no choice but to carry out the request.
Hunting the Catfish Crime Gang will air on Monday, October 23, 2023, on BBC Three at 9pm.
It will also air the following day on BBC One at 10.40pm.
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