How This Dating Site Grifter Stole Men's Identities to Fund Her Lavish Lifestyle

A woman who stole the identities of men she met through dating sites so she could fund a spectacularly luxurious lifestyle for years was arrested in Santa Barbara, California last week.

Police say 43-year-old Maria Christina Johnson's mode of operation was to "capitalize on her physical attraction and meet victims through well-known dating websites and home rental websites," according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. When police arrested her at a seaside beach resort last week, they estimated that she had spent over $250,000 of her victims' funds.

At different times, Johnson has posed as a high-end modeling agency executive, race car heiress, and a successful real estate agent. Her official listed occupation is "dog trainer." According to repots, once Johnson—who also went by the aliases Maria Hendricks, Gia Hendricks, Maria Christina Gia and Maria Hainka— successfully took over her victim's identity, she would open credit lines and move into luxury hotels, charging fabulous amounts to the bill while also buying expensive goods and services. One time, she even attempted to buy a car with a stolen identity.

Johnson also found a lucrative grift in home and vacation rentals. According to authorities, once Johnson was able to get into a victim's home, she would snoop around to find personal information, change their mailing address, open up credit lines, change their phone numbers (so calls from credit card companies would go directly to her) and assume the person's identity. Then she would steal the identities of the renter's relatives and friends.

Johnson would also make appointments with real estate brokers to look at expensive homes and, on at least one occasion, Johnson assumed the identity of a real estate broker she was pretending to business with. According to police, Johnson's sole income came from her grifting.

Johnson was born in Washington and served a two-year prison sentence for fraud in the state before moving to California. Before her capture last week, Johnson had been arrested several years earlier and served a prison sentence for 11 felony counts of identity theft, grand theft, and credit card fraud. In 2011, she was arrested again on identity theft charges.

Cases like these can be challenging for investigators, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department spokesperson Sgt. Kevin Duncan tells Broadly. "In this case, because she was transient and she moved around all the time, it was a matter of luck," that they were able to locate her, Duncan says. After two victims reported her alleged con to Los Angeles police, authorities found her on the internet as Maria Hendricks. One of the victims was able to confirm her identity seeing her photo online.

Police say it took a task force of multiple government agencies—the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Los Angeles Police Department, and the Los Angeles' Sheriff's Office—to bring down Johnson.

Johnson is being held on $2 million bail.

"We have six victims," Duncan says, "that doesn't include financial institutions." Authorities are still searching for more victims.