Jacqueline Crenshaw of East Haven, Connecticut, lost nearly $1 million after a scammer built an online romantic relationship with her, prayed with her over the phone, sent gifts and food deliveries to her home, and then directed her to liquidate retirement accounts and borrow against her home equity to fund what turned out to be a fake cryptocurrency investment. The case, disclosed by Connecticut Attorney General William Tong and AARP in a joint public service announcement, puts a sharp point on a pattern federal regulators have been tracking for years: romance scams that weaponize emotional and spiritual trust to drain protected savings far faster than conventional fraud schemes.
How prayer and gifts opened the door to a $900,000 loss
The mechanics of Crenshaw’s case follow a sequence that the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has formally labeled relationship investment scams. A scammer initiates contact online, builds romantic trust over weeks or months, then steers the victim toward cryptocurrency platforms controlled by the fraud operation. Those platforms display fake dashboards showing growing balances, convincing the victim that their money is working. In reality, the funds are gone the moment they leave the victim’s bank or brokerage account.
What set Crenshaw’s experience apart was the deliberate use of religious affinity. The scammer prayed with her, a tactic that deepened emotional dependence and made each financial request feel like a shared act of faith rather than a transaction. That trust led Crenshaw to take steps most people resist: she borrowed against her home and pulled money from retirement accounts, two categories of assets that carry legal protections and financial penalties specifically designed to discourage early withdrawal. The hypothesis that religious or spiritual manipulation accelerates asset liquidation is difficult to test with aggregate data, because federal crime reports do not break out affinity language as a variable. But the outcome in Crenshaw’s case, nearly $1 million lost, sits well above the median per-victim loss in crypto fraud and suggests that emotional grooming tied to shared belief systems can override the friction built into retirement savings.
Federal data and the scale of elder crypto fraud
Crenshaw’s loss is not an outlier in dollar terms. The FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Report found that cryptocurrency and AI-enabled scams cost Americans billions of dollars, with older adults bearing a disproportionate share of investment-scheme losses. The report documents how scammers pressure older adults to move savings quickly, often into cryptocurrency wallets where transactions are irreversible and difficult for law enforcement to trace.
Attorney General Tong and AARP launched their PSA specifically to counter these tactics among older Connecticut residents. The announcement named Crenshaw and described the full arc of her exploitation: online romance, emotional manipulation, gifts, food deliveries, a home equity loan, and retirement account withdrawals. Once the money moved into cryptocurrency and reached the scam platform, recovery became effectively impossible. That irreversibility is the core problem. Traditional bank fraud often allows chargebacks or account freezes. Crypto transfers do not.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau maintains guidance for financial institutions on how to identify and respond when a customer appears to be under exploitation, including protocols around trusted contacts and coordination with law enforcement. Whether any institution flagged Crenshaw’s transactions before the funds left her accounts is not clear from the public record, but the size and pattern of the transfers highlight how difficult it can be for banks and credit unions to distinguish between a determined customer and a coerced one. When a victim insists that a romantic partner or “investment coach” is legitimate, front-line staff may feel they have little room to intervene beyond verbal warnings.
What older consumers and families can do
Experts say prevention has to start long before money moves. Families are encouraged to talk openly about online relationships and investments, especially when a new partner urges secrecy, asks to move conversations off mainstream platforms, or introduces complex crypto opportunities that promise unusually high returns. Simple rules can help: never send money, gift cards, or cryptocurrency to someone you have not met in person; never let a romantic partner you only know online control your computer or phone; and be skeptical of anyone who discourages you from speaking with relatives or financial professionals.
Victims or family members who suspect an ongoing scam are urged to act quickly. The FBI accepts reports of internet-enabled fraud through its online tip form, which can help investigators spot patterns and, in some cases, freeze funds that have not yet left the traditional banking system. State attorneys general, local police, and adult protective services can also play a role, particularly when the victim is an older adult or a person with cognitive vulnerabilities.
Because many scams now cross borders and use sophisticated payment channels, consumer advocates recommend that older adults and caregivers familiarize themselves with federal and state resources collected on the government’s central portal at USA.gov. Those resources include links to fraud education, financial literacy tools, and agencies that can help with reporting or recovery efforts. While no checklist can eliminate the risk of romance or crypto fraud, the lessons from Jacqueline Crenshaw’s case point to a hard reality: when emotional manipulation meets frictionless digital money, hesitation and outside verification may be the only real safeguards left.
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