In May of last year, someone claiming to be a military doctor on a secret mission in North Korea contacted Laura Francis on Facebook, looking for love and connection. Francis, a California realtor, thought he was charming—his profile images portrayed a man with a muscular build, beard, tattoos, and hospital scrubs—but was initially skeptical of his intentions.
The mystery man called himself “David Hodge,” and he claimed to be a kind of surgeon, helping soldiers who’d been injured by explosives in war. As part of his backstory, David told Francis he had an ex-wife who had cheated on him and a 5-year-old son.
David’s love-bombing of Francis, 69, was instant. He texted Francis every morning and throughout the day (usually on Google Hangouts) and called her on the phone just as often. “I fell in love with his voice, he had the cutest laugh,” Francis recalls. He serenaded her with links to romantic songs on YouTube: “Hero” by Enrique Iglesias and “I Swear” by All-4-One.
According to Francis, David said “he had been there and done that with the beautiful young women, and they were all not loyal.” He told her he “wanted somebody that was more mature.”
“Meeting you was fate, becoming your friend was a choice but falling in love with you is beyond my control,” David wrote one evening in August 2021, as they discussed buying a wedding ring.
Courtesy of Laura Francis
“You have no idea how elaborate it was,” Francis told The Daily Beast in an interview, after she learned her nearly year-long affair with David wasn’t a real relationship but a cryptocurrency romance scam, one in which she claims she lost $248,000 of her savings—money that was supposed to be ..
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