Father donned lipstick and pretended to be a woman to trap a Nigerian conman

Father donned lipstick and pretended to be a woman to trap a Nigerian conman and then outed him on Facebook when he asked for cash to fly to UK

A conman was forced to beg for forgiveness after a prankster father dressed up in drag to pretend to be a vulnerable woman and then exposed his scam online.

David Walker, 39, asked his daughter to put make-up on him and created a fake Facebook profile named 'Julian Le Flange' to lure online predators after a family friend was conned into handing over thousands of pounds in an online romance.

The father-of-two was soon approached by a 'religious pastor' from Nigeria who quickly declared his love for Julian before asking for $900 (£690) so that he could get a flight to the UK.

However Mr Walker took advantage of the scammer's eagerness to get his hands on the cash by luring him into a hilarious exchange that ended with the father sending a photo of his daughter's toys labelled as the 'Western Union shop'.

But he was subsequently banned by Facebook for 'breaching the firm's anti-bullying policy'. 

After Mr Walker posted the images of their conversation online, the self-declared religious pastor was bombarded with hundreds of prank messages from other Facebook users and ended up begging him to tell people to stop harassing him.

Mr Walker, from Newcastle, said: 'I was inspired to start doing this because I have a good friend whose mother unfortunately fell victim to one of these scammers and she lost thousands of pounds.

'Unfortunately lots of people do get stitched up by these conmen. She was very embarrassed about what happened and it had a very negative effect on her. My friend really likes what I'm doing and is supportive of it.

'I roped in my daughter to put some make-up on me for the photo as Julian. I can't say I enjoyed it but she certainly found it funny to make her dad look silly.

'It did the trick though as people think it's a woman.

'To lure them in, I just go on my Facebook as Julian and use the account to comment on popular stories on news articles. Soon enough these conmen start contacting you as they see you active.

'I always report them to Facebook but often there's nothing they can do because they've not yet committed a crime. 

'Instead I often get banned. I've had my account suspended around five times. I think it's because I post private conversations without the other party's consent.

'The man mistook me for a woman and was trying to romance me in a confidence trick to get money on the pretence of a flight over to the UK - but of course he would never turn up.

'Once I shared the pictures on my Facebook of how I had strung him along for so long he then started getting loads of messages from everyone giving him lots of abuse.

'He then came back to me demanding I tell everyone to stop messaging him. He got to the point where he was very angry indeed and he did everything from rant and rage to grovel. He was begging me to get people to stop harassing him, it was hilarious.

'However I didn't want to help him, hopefully now he will think twice about doing it again. 

'It is nice to see him get a taste of his own medicine. He was eventually forced to delete his account.'

Mr Walker has exposed dozens of the conmen with his pranks and has developed a reputation among his friends for his online antics.

In June last year, he hit the headlines with a similar prank in which he got revenge on a con-artist by pretending to go along with their dodgy 'business venture' over dozens of hilarious messages and even persuaded him to agree to a dinner DATE.

Mr Walker said: 'Anyone who falls victim to these conmen would lose their money but they would also suffer the embarrassment of having fallen for something like this. They could also be heartbroken. It really can have a terrible effect on someone.

'I hope that by doing it some of them might get put off from doing it if I cause them enough hassle. 

'Lots of people have been messaging me, praising what I'm doing and saying they are going to start doing it too, so it seems I'm having an effect.

'I will carry on doing this and exposing more scammers. If it just puts off one person, it's worth it.

'My daughters think it's hilarious, though I don't show them the conversations I have with the scammers as they often contain adult material.

'My long-suffering wife puts up with it, she tolerates my antics. All my friends love it though - they talk about it all the time.'

A spokesperson for Facebook confirmed that Mr Walker had been suspended as some of his posts with the scammers breached their anti-bullying policy.

SOURCE: DAILY MAIL ON LINE