Victim of Tinder predator Christopher Harkins ‘left penniless’

A mother-of-two says she was left penniless after giving her savings to Tinder predator Christopher Harkins in a fake investment scam.

The couple met on the London dating app in 2020. Caitlyn (not her real name) told how the scammer and rapist initially tried to convince her to go on holiday with him, a common ruse of Harkins, now 38.

When she said she couldn’t afford a holiday, he offered to “help her” by doubling the money she had through his currency exchange business.

She is one of four women known to the BBC who were attacked by Harkins in the capital, where she fled after her crimes were exposed in Scotland.

She said: “At first I thought he was very gentlemanly. He was being brilliant with money.

“He was telling me that his business was doing very well and making a lot of money. He said he could help me raise money.”

Harkins used the fake name Christopher Telfer when speaking to Caitlyn, who had recently separated from the father of her two young children.

She sent him £3,132 in total. “This money was very valuable to me,” he said.

“I felt very vulnerable at that time because of my situation and he kept offering to invest my money and earn more with it. I was naive. He told me that any money I had I could send to him. He wanted to help me.”

When Caitlyn began asking for her money back, Harkins told her that her bank account had been frozen.

He insisted that she had to give him more in order to recoup her initial investment.

Caitlyn said: “I was already getting really nervous. I had given him all the money I had.

“I was very stressed and worried. He constantly asked me for more money, but I didn’t have any. He told me I could take out bank loans and overdrafts.”

Via text, Caitlyn asked Harkins to prove the investment wasn’t a scam. This suggestion seemed to trigger him.

“He got very angry. He told me: ‘Don’t talk to me like that, you’re going to regret talking to me like that.’

“I was very afraid of him at the time. After I refused to send more, he became very aggressive.”

At one point, Caitlyn’s home situation became very difficult. “I was desperate,” she said.

“I said, ‘I’m begging you, I’m going through a really hard time, I have two kids, I’m not working.’ I was like, ‘Even 200 pounds, even 300 pounds, just a little bit,’ but he didn’t respond. He completely ignored me.”

Harkins blocked Caitlyn’s number. She says she was too scared to report him to the police. She never recovered a penny.

“I felt so stupid afterwards,” she said.

“I couldn’t even tell anyone for a while. I was so embarrassed. It was a nightmare. Only one friend knew about it. It was a very horrible time in my life.”

This pattern of behavior was typical of Harkins, who according to the BBC attacked at least 30 women in a series of crimes spanning almost a decade. He used dating sites like Tinder to look for new victims.

Harkins is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence for crimes against 10 women in Scotland, including rape, assault, making intimate videos without consent and defrauding women he met online of more than £214,000.

In his dating profile, Harkins presented himself as a business-owning and jet-setting “gym rat,” but in reality he was a prolific and predatory scammer.

His scams included pretending to book romantic holidays and asking for money for his business because his bank account was frozen.

In other cases, he pressured women to take out loans of up to £12,000 to give to him. He also used their identities to apply for loans himself. One woman was forced to declare bankruptcy, while others spent years paying off debt and suffered mental health problems as a result.

Many of the women Harkin targeted were too ashamed to tell their family and friends about their ordeals.

After being exposed in a newspaper and arrested in Scotland in early 2020, Harkins fled to London and began using a false name.

The BBC understands that Harkins spent time in London throughout his life, as his father lived there.

Despite the legal threat hanging over him, Harkins continued his scams in England.

In January 2023 he was jailed at Isleworth Crown Court for another fraud after defrauding another woman of £16,700.

The BBC investigation uncovered further alleged fraud by Harkins worth almost £70,000. The BBC wrote to Harkins in prison to ask him about these allegations. He didn’t answer.

Caitlyn learned of Harkins’ other crimes after reading a BBC article in January. It was an emotional moment, realizing for the first time that he had also addressed other women.

She added: “I shared it with my group of friends and finally told them everything that had happened.

“I have decided to report it to the police.”

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can find support details in the BBC action line.