"My motherly instincts told me something was wrong with her," Melody Jones said of her son's Russian girlfriend.
The worried mother of a U.S. soldier in Russian custody said Wednesday that her son “was lured” there by a Russian woman he had been seeing in South Korea for over a year and that he’s being held on trumped-up charges of stealing roughly $100 from her.
Melody Jones said she thinks her son, Staff Sgt. Gordon Black, was set up by his girlfriend, whom she identified as Aleksandra Vashchuk.
“I think she convinced him to come there,” Jones said in a video interview from her home in Cheyenne, Wyoming. “He wanted to see her for the last time before going home, and so he went there.”
The Russians detained Black, 34, on theft charges last week after he traveled from the military base in South Korea where he had been stationed to the far eastern Russian city of Vladivostok.
A Defense Department spokesperson said Tuesday that the Army is investigating whether Russia’s intelligence services specifically targeted Black.
You would think "if you're lonely, don't trust Russian women online" would be pretty drilled into U.S. troops, especially ones near the Russian border.
They used to make sure even the dumbest troops in WWII understood that concept when it came to Nazis.
Not sure how it is now. But I was working in Seoul around 25 years ago. The hotel I was working at had afno and there were always these really patronising public service pieces in between the old (yes in 2000 there were still old simpsons episodes). I'd be amazed something about this wasn't one of them.
This scam is as old as time. A person in a bad place in their life and/or let hormones make their decisions is vulnerable to these. People considered 'intelligent' get duped in scams too.
“They have a 6½-year-old daughter,” Jones said. “And she misses her daddy.”
He was also cheating on his wife with this woman for over a year and delayed getting back home to his daughter so he could go to Russia to cheat on the mother of his child.
He should have known better on many levels.
And I don't think he gives a single fuck about his daughter.