It's bad enough to rip an individual or business off in, say, a real estate or insurance scam. But to actually target someone who is lonely and looking for love, then maintain the deception over a long period of time is cruel beyond words.
Sadly, scams of this kind are happening increasingly often all over the world. The American FTC even issued a warning about them recently.
The locations where these scams are being run from are changing lately, too. For example, it appears that Russian bride scams aren't just run from within that country. It seems that many of them are actually perpetrated by organized criminals in Queensland's Gold Coast.