"I was caught up by the atmosphere and by something in his words," she said.
The pre-amble
Johnny: "I wish I could see through your eyes and see what you like to see"
Maria: "I like to see the truth, and often the truth is more beautiful and greater than people dare to realize"
Johnny: "You talk in parable´s. I can´t wait to see you"
Maria: "I cant understand how you can think so dedicated of me, when you have never met me. That scares me."
Grette
who had lived in different countries across Europe, was surprised that
she could not place the man's accent. She mentioned this to him but
didn't give it too much thought.
He
told her that he was planning for his retirement; had Sweden in mind
for a place to settle; owned a house in Denmark inherited from his
parents; wanted to leave that to his son, Nick, who was very attached to
it, while he looked for a new home for himself in Sweden.
"I
wanted to meet him because I liked him," she said. "He had a way and a
sweetness I had never known in a man before. And he was innocent in a
way that puzzled me."
Grette
put all these qualities down to "an old fashioned upbringing and an
isolated life - living in hotels and spending his free time on golf
courses owing to much travelling".
After
three months of communicating, the man agreed to come over and visit
her in Sweden. But before that, he and his son needed to make a quick
trip to Nigeria for a job interview, he said. Johnny
called to let her know that he was at Heathrow Airport. And to say that
he had landed in Nigeria. He also got her to speak with Nick. The next
phone call was to tell her that he was in a Lagos hospital. They had been mugged, his son shot in the head, and they were without money and papers. Unfortunately,
his bank did not have a branch in Africa, he added, so it would take
time to transfer money from his UK account. Meanwhile, the hospital
management was requesting €1000 to proceed with treatment.
"Honey, I am in the hospital right now using the doctor´s laptop to send you this message so you can know my situation. Honey, if Nick dies I will also die with him, I have been crying, I wish I could call you, I wish I never came here, I will never forgive myself for bringing Nick along with me. I will call you with the doctor´s phone and send you an email later if I have the chanse. Honey, I am happy to hear from you and I am still at the hospital. The doctor said we where lucky we where not kidnapped. The bank does not have a location in Africa, so it will take time to get money and the management are requesting 1000 euros to proceed with treatment. Nick is all I have got and I will not forgive myself if anything happens to him. I am confused, and I do not know where to turn at the moment......"
"I will never forget how I rushed to the Western Union office, trembling while I did the transfer," Ms Grette said.
"All I could think of was to get the two persons in Nigeria out of danger."
The
plot developed after that initial transfer. Medical complications
called for more money. The doctors demanded more advance fees.
Several thousands of euro later, in what she describes as "coming to her senses", Maria realised that something was amiss.
She stopped responding to his messages.Three weeks after her silence, he called her and confessed. He told her that he was not who she thought he was.
"I said I already knew that. I asked him to tell me his true identity and he did."
He was a 24-year-old Nigerian 419 scammer. He had finished university two years earlier but had no job.
He further described himself as a "devil" who had wronged "a lovely woman".
"He
said he had never met anyone like me before, that he had been fighting
his feelings for me for a long time. He said his scamming mates had
warned him about falling in love with a 'client', that he had ignored
them because he trusted me and did not want to lose contact with me."
From this point on, their communication took a new turn. There were no further requests for cash.
"The
attraction I started feeling was to the person who was revealing
himself to me... It was still him, but with a new name and different age
and circumstances," she said.
Johnny sent her a photograph of himself, but Maria was not satisfied with that.
"I wanted to meet him," she said. "I could not live with this relationship unless it was adjusted to reality in all senses."
Unable to get him a visa to travel to Sweden, she made up her mind to go to Nigeria.
In October 2009, Ms Grette travelled to Africa for the first time in her life.
"When I saw him at the airport in Abuja, tears fell over his face, and I knew I had known him all my life."
Ms
Grette described her two weeks in Nigeria as blissful, a period during
which she and Johnny succeeded in transforming their romantic feelings
for each other into a good friendship. She
met his friends, many of whom were also scammers. It was while enjoying
their company one night in a local bar that she began to wonder how she
could make a difference.
"I asked myself what I could do to prevent a situation where healthy, good young men fall into this trap," she said.
An idea came to her two years later, in 2011, after she saw an article on a Nigerian news website about an arts exhibition.
Over
the past six years, Ms Grette has arranged for a number of African
artists to visit Europe for arts exhibitions, workshops, conferences and
competitions. She has assisted them to source international grants and other funding to advance their work. She
has also visited Uganda to give talks on art, and is looking forward to
another visit to Nigeria scheduled for later this year.
Ms Grette, now 69 and living in Norway, is elated at the opportunity to improve the lives of these young artists.
"Johnny has given me more than he took," she said, "Without him, I would not have met Africa."
When she'd visited him in Abuja, Johnny promised Ms Grette that he would give up scamming.
With her assistance, he left Nigeria shortly afterwards, to study in America.
Although
they have not met each other again since, she continued to provide him
with financial assistance until he completed his degree a few years ago
and got a job in the American oil sector.
They
still communicate frequently, updating themselves on each other's
lives; and last year, he bought one of her paintings which she shipped
over to him in America.
"He is very dear to me," she said.
"He has asked me so many times to forgive him and I told him that the most important thing is to forgive himself."
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