“Mother and son in court for cyber fraud” is the caption of a piteous, worrisome and depressing news item, written by a Ghana News Agency (GNA) correspondent, which appeared Wednesday, December 3, 2008, on www.ghanaweb.com, the latter the leading pro-Ghanaian Internet news conduit. The story is basically one that has been told many times in our technologically advanced world: a man finds a “woman” ? or vice versa ? on the Internet; presumes that all the personal details about his love interest are true; proceeds to contact her; and soon finds out, albeit disconsolately, that he has been swindled. Well, my analysis of this piece will, hopefully, be multifaceted enough to warn those who are so effortlessly clawed by the fangs of beguilement, or fascination, to rethink every click of the mouse the next time they are looking for love on the Internet. After all, it is a well-known fact that many adults become easily manipulable when faced with the prospect of some anticipated but out-of-the-ordinary sexual adventure, the type that many regular folks wholeheartedly find too nauseating to indulge in.

In the aforementioned piece, one Abdul Issah had posed as Sarah Morrison, a 32-year-old Ghanaian lady, whom the complainant in this case, a 61-year-old American named Robert Reece Bruce, had pursued as a love interest. Without sounding too conservative, when was it okay for a man to pursue a woman half his age? Am I the only who finds something absurd about such “father-daughter” love relationships? My biggest concern about American and European men looking for love overseas (especially in poor African countries), when these men could easily find the same in their own backyards, is the fact that some of these women, sadly, tend to be subjected to despicable and unfathomable sexual cruelty and lurid acts, once these women willingly relocate with these men to the latter’s home countries.

Not too long ago, there was a report about some Ghanaian girls who were brought to New York by purportedly loving husbands-to-be, only to be forced to engage in the most sordid and reprehensible sexual acts with other men, much to the chagrin of these innocent women and those who were touched by the victims’ plight. Regrettably, most of these women were not knowledgeable enough at first to understand that, unless they were physically confined by their “captors,” they had the choice of going to the police to file complaints of sexual abuse. After all, these women deserved to not be treated like animals, just to satisfy the depravity of a few fools.

I wish to advise those young Ghanaian ladies in Accra and other parts of Ghana who are determined to find love in Europe or the U.S.A. to be extremely careful about the people they communicate with. While some of these men may have the resources to splatter on their “victims,” in return for taking the latter overseas, these women must realize that some of these men are not after love, but simply want gullible and docile partners to engage in lurid sexual acts with, acts even lower animals will never attempt. There is a sermon being preached on inordinate sexual freedom in some of our “advanced” regions of the world, where people engage in all sorts of weird things, so our ladies should be careful about whose proposals they accept and where they agree to go. And then, of course, there are some good American and European men out there who are truly interested in Ghanaian women, but these men may be in the minority. Some may argue that it takes two to engage in sex, but such people should never forget that the power of the dollar may be too tempting for the penurious, which means that some weak-minded people may very well succumb to the temptation to make a few bucks, at the expense of their personal dignity and physical wellbeing.

For those old imbeciles who constantly “prowl” the Internet seeking sex ? under the guise of love ? with girls young enough to be their daughters, I have no sympathy for them when they are hoodwinked and duped by calculating perpetrators. Although duping another person is a crime, some of these men should not have placed themselves in situations where they would be swindled in the first place. The insatiable sexual desires of many people in my part of the world are simply too filthy to even discuss on the pages of a public Web site such as this one, so I hope those bent on relocating overseas would seek the right manner to make these trips, so as to not fall prey to dyed-in-the-wool sexual predators and deviants, some of whom are on their countries’ or states’ Sex and Violent Offender registries (these are mandatory and permanent records of people successfully prosecuted for sexual crimes).

One danger of having an e-mail address in the public domain is the risk of receiving unsolicited messages, and have I received my fair share of filth! In fact, until I managed to block his e-mails, there was this notorious white male who kept sending me graphic images of his lurid sexual acts with local Ghanaian girls in some of Accra’s hotels. His message was basically that our girls were cheap, that he had access to as many as he wanted, and that he paid them $50.00 for unprotected sex! Talk about mental and financial domination! So, ladies, take this article seriously, for I am not fabricating the aforementioned story! Well, this despicable behavior only reminds me of how poor black women, before the Great Emancipation, were sexual slaves of their cotton-plantation owners, being forced to render sexual services against their will! And then I also regularly receive strange e-mails from “women,” purported victims of the Liberian and Sierra Leonian civil wars, who claim that they saw my picture on the Internet and had fallen hard for me! Absolute balderdash! For those unaware of these things, such e-mails emanate from the computers of fraudsters pretending to be orphans, so please beware!

Finally, I am not saying that Robert Reece Bruce is a bad guy ? far from it! But I am just wondering why Mr. Bruce cannot find a black girlfriend in the United States ? it appears black women are his preference ? instead of attempting to find a stranger 6,000 miles away in a country he probably has never visited! Yes, I am saddened by Mr. Bruce’s financial loss in this saga, especially in his attempt to buy gold illegally from Ghana, but I also hope that Mr. Bruce will learn some important lessons from his own story: stick to a prudent search for a woman (and one will unlikely be swindled in such terrible fashion) and always do business legitimately! Also, most Americans interested in doing business in Ghana usually seek information from the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Embassy in Ghana, and other U.S. agencies before embarking on their business ventures, so for Mr. Bruce to have tried to buy gold illegally is inexcusable. I truly hope that those police officers investigating this case will be fair-minded enough to prosecute everyone involved, if found culpable, and not just poor Abdul Issah, Reliatu Mohammed (Abdul’s mother), and Kamal, a collaborator in the crime.

The writer, Daniel K. Pryce, holds a master’s degree in public administration from George Mason University, U.S.A. He is a member of the national honor society for public affairs and administration in the U.S.A. He can be reached at dpryce@c