Catfishing a conman back on dating app days after jail release
BBCWithin days of being released from his seventh prison term for romance fraud, Raymond McDonald was back on a dating app looking for his next victim.
Over more than 20 years he had racked up 58 convictions, mostly for fraud and theft, while telling lies on an industrial scale and taking thousands of pounds from women for holidays and weddings which were never going to happen.
This time when he went looking, the BBC was waiting.
He thought he was having a date with "Kaye", but instead found himself being approached by a BBC reporter and camera crew.
He had met Kaye online and, calling himself Rob, told her he was a deep-sea diver "looking for a wife".
All lies, but McDonald has told plenty of those before.
SuppliedBorn in County Durham, McDonald was court marshalled and discharged from the army in August 2000.
He was released on licence from his most recent spell in prison in November 2025 and by 3 December the BBC found him on an online dating site and living near York.
It was agreed a BBC colleague would pose as Kaye, a mother of two in her fifties from Selby.
She wore a wig, posed with a glass of wine and her cat and said this was her first time using dating apps.
On her first day online, McDonald liked Kaye's profile and began a conversation.
She described how her daughter Lauren was going through a break up and McDonald offered the use of his van to help her move.
He said they could stay in his lodge and encouraged Kaye to buy presents from a friend who could get things on the cheap.
He offered to go halves on a handbag for Lauren, despite having never met either woman, and even suggested a possible "wedding in Vegas".
SuppliedPosing as Kaye, BBC reporter Philippa Goymer arranged to meet him for a "date".
"It's Rob, isn't it?" she said, as she approached him at the agreed meeting place.
"Yeh," he said, a moment before spotting her microphone and the camera crew.
"It's not Rob though, is it," Goymer said. "It's Ray, or are you Mark today?"
Asked why he was back on dating apps, McDonald said he was "just looking for friendship".
"I just want to meet someone nice," he claimed.
"No, you're not looking to meet someone, you're looking to steal from them," Goymer replied.
"I have apologised," McDonald said when Goymer pointed out that people had lost their homes because of him.
On 15 December, five days after that encounter, McDonald was arrested by North Yorkshire officers at the request of Northumbria Police.
A spokesperson for HM Prison & Probation Service said he was returned to prison for breaking the rules of his licence conditions.
Northumbria Police previously told the BBC they believe there may be "hundreds" of women who have been defrauded by McDonald, many too embarrassed or ashamed to report his crimes.
Two more did come forward after watching the BBC documentary Are we dating the same fraudster?, one one of whom said it was like "being hit by a train" to know he was "still at it".
To protect their identities, we are only using their first names.
Caroline, from County Durham, was divorced in 2002 and says she "plodded along for a bit" before being persuaded by a friend to give dating apps a try.
Even at their first meeting, McDonald - calling himself Mark Swift - said he had forgotten his wallet and suggested she "help him out" by paying for some petrol, which she thought "a bit odd".
But they had a coffee and chatted and he seemed "nice, quite canny".
He messaged often in the next few weeks but meetings were "few and far between".
Then the lies began.
His daughter was seriously ill with cancer, could she help him out with some money because he had had to miss a few shifts?
"I was paying money into an account in the name of a Raymond McDonald, but he explained that was his financial adviser," Caroline says.
Then, just a few weeks after they had first met, McDonald suggested they got married.
Caroline had developed "feelings" for him and agreed.
She gave him money for a deposit, bought bridesmaid dresses for her daughters, a veil, "a few little trinket bits".
It was only when her mum checked with their supposed wedding venue that the scale of the deception became apparent.
Caroline reported him to the police, but the debts she had built up giving him money she thought were loans meant she lost her home.
"I've got nothing now," she said.
"Nothing at all apart from my little crummy car and my dog."
Another woman, Susan from Wearside, also saw the 2024 documentary.
In 2010 she was going through a "rough patch" after her partner had left her with two young children.
She and McDonald had both grown up in Peterlee, County Durham, and he "popped up" one day on social media.
He said he had property and could get her a TV and "other stuff off the back of lorries".
During their relationship, Susan estimates McDonald conned her into handing over nearly £4,000, some of it money other people had given her.
She finally messaged a mutual childhood friend asking if he had heard from McDonald.
"Last I heard, he robs old women," came the reply.
Susan was in so much debt she ended up in a women's refuge with her children and suffered significant health problems.
"I pawned my mum's rings, he just took everything I had and I was diagnosed with an aneurysm and Bell's palsy."
Cleveland PoliceMany victims, like Susan, want dating apps to make life harder for scammers.
"There must be more they can do to stop people like him," she says.
McDonald has used various sites in the past, including Tinder, Hinge and Plenty of Fish, but this time he was on Badoo.
A Badoo spokesperson said: "We work closely with law enforcement and maintain dedicated channels for them to share information about individuals who are banned from using dating apps due to court orders or parole restrictions.
"Anyone found to be attempting to defraud or manipulate members will be restricted or banned from the app."
Plenty of Fish, Hinge and Tinder are all owned by Match Group.
Its spokesperson said: "We invest heavily in proactive tools, advanced detection systems and user education.
"We also work closely with law enforcement through the industry's first global law enforcement portal, enabling authorities to share information and request data to support their investigations."
But McDonald's victims believe nothing will stop him looking for another victim when he next comes out of prison.
Susan said society needs to "fundamentally change for people like him to stop perpetrating this on innocent people".
"It causes such mental health anguish to your average Joe who just goes to work, raises her kids and wants to find love."
