Richard Dexter: The UK’s own Tinder Swindler who stole over £140,000

Richard Dexter – otherwise known as the “Tinder Swindler UK,” has been jailed for four-and-a-half years.

The 38-year-old dad-of-two met a woman named Amrita Sebastian on Tinder back in 2015. He then went on to con her out of £141,500 across several years, in order to fund the lavish lifestyle he’d dreamed of. Dexter lived in Southsea, Hampshire when he first got talking to Amrita – but convinced her he was a “successful businessman worth £6.8 million.”

Before sentencing, he pled guilty to seven counts of fraud, as well as being charged with one count of perverting the course of justice.

A fraudster posing as a successful businessman conned a millionairess he met on Tinder into handing him £141,000, a court was told.

Richard Dexter, 37, promised his victim Amrita Sebastian that he was on the verge of a “big windfall” and “significant sums”… pic.twitter.com/n6Ri9wnFqk

— Khaya Sithole (@CoruscaKhaya) February 8, 2022

After meeting Amrita online, Dexter told her he was “involved in Hollywood studios and alluded to immense wealth, private jets and expensive cars.”

The prosecution heard that one of his first messages to Amrita – who lives in Dubai – stated “I am 32. Most of my friends did college and uni, all of them have debts and worries and all earn £40,000 to £60,ooo. I bought a hot air balloon yesterday just because I could.”

Dexter and Amrita met in person during autumn 2015. He told her an international medical company was interested in buying tech equipment he had the patents for. The “deal” was worth £3.6 million and Amrita could supposedly benefit 50 per cent – this, obviously, was a lie.

Photo via Unsplash

Over the next year and a bit, Amrita began sending payments every month to Dexter. Some were as big as £68,000. She became ill during the course of the 15 months, and even continued sending money from hospital.

After realising, in 2017, that Dexter was never going to pay her back, Amrita alerted the police. Records show that Dexter had actually used a lot of the money to buy a classic car.

He also invested in cryptocurrency, allegedly making back over £200,000. He told prosecutors he’d send this to Amrita in lieu of actually paying her back in genuine cash.

“I’m very, very sorry,” he said.

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• Everything The Tinder Swindler on Netflix missed out about the Simon Leviev case

Featured image via Hampshire Constabulary & Unsplash before edits.