Until retired engineer Eddie Rushe was scammed into losing £35,000 online, he was often referred to as the big man.
The 82-year-old from Lurgan, Co Armagh, worked in the airline industry for decades and, in his spare time, bred and raced greyhounds.
From November 2023 until February last year, Mr Rushe was “groomed”, according to his son, by fraudsters in an elaborate cryptocurrency scam – which used AI-generated deep fake images of consumer experts on social media advertisements.
The widower contacted a number after spotting an investment opportunity on a fraudulent online video.
Daily calls were then made to his mobile by a financial adviser called “Sophie” who persuaded him to close his bank account and reopen a new one to make money transfers.
He was also convinced to open a second account with an online bank and buy a laptop to access his cryptocurrency.
Over the following 18 months, Mr Rushe was conned three separate times.
During that period he suffered a stroke that led to him being admitted to a hospital intensive care unit.
“My dad’s just a shadow of himself. He’s become inward,” Michael Rushe told The Irish Times.
“He still races greyhounds, that’s his get up and go to in the morning.
“If you take that away, you’re taking away his independence. He’s just a broken man.”
Today, the pensioner is still getting calls from fraudsters posing as so-called recovery companies who promise to help him get his money back.
The tactic led to him being duped a second and third time following the initial scam when £13,000 was moved from the online bank account to criminals.
Mr Rushe is now afraid to answer his phone.
When he was last scammed in June, fraudsters tricked him by lodging £1,000 into his account.
“Once they get his details, they pass it on to a colleague who’s either sitting in another room or another country – they just sell his data on and it’s an easy one because he’s been got before,” said Michael Rushe.
“My dad blocks and deletes the numbers now. But they’re very clever, they buy in bulk and use another fresh SIM card.”
When Mr Rushe confided in his four children last year, his son recalls how embarrassed he was.
“He told us that every day he was doing this it was for us. We were heartbroken for him.
“A few weeks later he fell and had a bleed on the brain. That led to him having a stroke – I firmly believe what has happened led to his illness.”
The family reported the crime to the Police Service of Northern Ireland last January but have not heard anything since.
The case is now with the UK’s financial ombudsman service, which has an office in Belfast.
Latest figures show a spike in cryptocurrency and investment fraud in recent years, with almost £630 million stolen in the UK during the first six months of 2025.
Up to €30 million has been reported stolen in the Republic over the past two years, a senior Garda expert confirmed on Monday.
Michael Rushe is pursuing the case with the finance watchdog and said it has become “all-consuming”.
“I’m an independent financial adviser so I’m well versed in what these guys do behind the scenes,” he added.
“I’ve seen a lot of this happening on a day-to-day basis but when it’s your blood, it’s not easy.”
He called for tougher measures to be introduced by financial authorities to protect vulnerable people.
“It’s rife, it’s a cancer and there’s no legislation to prevent these people from doing it,” he said.
“The big problem is that every time one gets closed down, another one opens up again. Police end up chasing their tail.”