Lovestruck Guys Bilked by Pretty Young Things

swindle links to original article

(Sabah Newspaper, 29 September 2011)

A five-person gang that bilked 50 people in 20 provinces with promises of
marriage, much like the film 'Hokkabaz' (Swindler), has been broken. The
film, in which Cem Yılmaz played the lead role, became real in Adana. As
in the film, the gang hoodwinked elderly, rich and naive men, in particular,
with marriage promises. Adana Gendarmerie teams broke the gang with an
operation carried out in 20 provinces. It is claimed that the five gang
members, including the leader and three women, used this method to get
50 people in 20 provinces to buy them 200,000TL worth of gold before
the weddings and then absconded.

Gang leader Şahan Kuşçu used 'bride candidate' Tuğba Çelik (20) as bait.
Both were arrested in Adana. The young woman would live with the dupes
who fell in love with her for a time to gain their confidence. She then had
them buy her large amounts of jewelry and when the man was out of the
house she would steal his things and flee. It has been learned that gang
leader Kuşçu sometime used his own wife, Latife Kuşçu, as a 'bride
candidate.'

One of the elderly men defrauded in the scheme said in his statement that
'she took three thousand lira from me but the girl was really beautiful. I
don't care about the money I lost. She was worth it.' Another elderly man
in Uşak who was bilked by the gang had a heart attack and died when he
realized what had happened. The suspects, who rejected the accusations,
were transported to court.