The son of a 67-year-old man from Yonkers, New York, who shot himself, believes his father committed suicide after realizing that he felt victim to a 419 scam that cost him over $50,000.Peter Circelli, says that after his father's death he discovered emails suggesting that he was romantically involved with a woman from Ghana, who called herself Aisha.
The communications and accompanying receipts for Western Union money transfers to the African country were going back months, but Peter claims no one knew of the secret affair his father Al had with the alleged woman.
"
They say Ghana, $300. Ghana, $200," he
told ABC News. "
We've added them all up and they come to the sum of $50,000."
According to the emails, Aisha wanted to move to the United States and start a new life together with the man, but she needed money to cover expenses.
The money were always received on the woman's behalf by a friend named Nulu Suleman, but this didn't seem to bother Al Circelli, who was blinded by his newly found romance.
When the man ran out of money, he stopped making mortgage payments and set up credit cards in his son's name without his knowledge.
Circelli took his own life the day Aisha was supposed to arrive in America. Obviously she didn't show up. Instead, he got an email from Suleman, informing him that she had "blown her head off".
"
It can't be tracked. These people are like ghosts and the damage these people have caused, they shouldn't be able to cause in other people's lives," Peter Circelli said.
"
To see him go down like this, to think there are other families who might have to go through something like this, I have to open my mouth. I can't hide no more," he added.
Unfortunately, this isn't the first time an Internet scam ends tragically. Last year we
reported about a Canadian man who died in a clinic in the Philippines, while waiting for a kidney transplant he thought he secured over the Internet.
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