In a case similar to the 2012 Gemma Barker case, a British woman - who cannot be named for legal reasons - has said she fell in love with the man on Facebook.
Kye Fortune, who claimed to be half-Filipino / half-Latino, often spoke with the woman online, telling her that he had been involved in a car accident.
In the aftermath of the crash, he said that doctors had discovered a brain tumour.
After months of speaking online and on the phone (she admits he had a ‘strangely high-pitched voice’), the couple became closer than ever.
However he always insisted that he was too sick to meet up in person.
Speaking to police, she said: “He was saying how much I had helped him get through his illness.
“[He said] it was a sign, we should get married, we should have kids, we were going to do all sorts of things.
After a great deal of time, Fortune finally agreed to meet in person - on one condition: she had to wear a blindfold because he was “anxious about the way he looked.”
The woman agreed and met him at a hotel in Chester, near Liverpool, where they had sex in a room decorated with petals and Hello Kitty toys.
Once they had finished Kye told her he had to return to hospital for further treatment, and left.
The date was repeated several times, with the woman always wearing a blindfold for their sexual encounters.
But, on the last of their meet-ups, the woman said that she sensed something was very wrong.
“When I was having sex I grabbed for the back of his head and my hand got caught on something. It did not feel right,” she said.
“I was sat on the bed, he was standing up. Something in my mind said, ‘Pull it off! Pull it off!’”
When she pulled off the blindfold, she was stunned to see her friend, Gayle Newman, standing there wearing a strap-on dildo.
“Gayle was just standing there,” she said. “I just couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it.
“Straight away she held her hand down over her face and said, ‘It’s not what you think.’”
Gayle Newland, 25, is now on trial at Chester Crown Court.
She denies the five counts of sexual assault.