Simon’s pictures are used by anonymous troll: “Let me be”

For twelve years, pictures of Simon Öhman have been used by fake profiles on various social media.
A form of “catfishing” that has only gotten rougher over the years.
– I’m just an ordinary father of two, leave me alone, he says in Efter fem.

It was after Simon’s wife Moa went out on Tiktok and confirmed that it was not Simon who had written and made dirty invitations to girls that his story was picked up in the media.

After their interview with SVT News a week ago, they have received even more attention and the interview in Thursday’s After Five is their third in a row.

Simon says that the first account was created on Facebook in 2012 when he was twelve years old, and that then it was just someone sharing pictures of him and his sister.

But over time, it has come to the point that, since a couple of years ago, pictures of him are being used to chat with girls and used for “catfishing” – a form of romance fraud.

Received messages immediately after delivery

It is supposed to involve hundreds of girls who have been in contact with the profiles, and the couple reported the whole thing to the police, but it was shut down almost immediately.

– Then you lost hope a little and we tried to screw it up, but after Moa’s video, it feels like you have to take advantage of this help that is now coming with the media, so it’s actually the police who have contacted me privately, says Simon.

Moa says that she can sometimes get as many as five messages a day from girls who have been in contact with the fake account, and that it was extra tough when she got messages on the same day they got home from BB.

– It was very difficult, then you lived in this baby bubble and we had had a break from it for two weeks and we felt ‘no, should it start again?’ she says.

Urges to block and report

Jan Olsson is a criminal inspector at the national IT crime center, and says that they have the knowledge to be able to investigate this type of crime, but that there are so many cases that the resources are not enough.

– The fact that we would set aside a resource consisting of several super-specialized people is not that great in the individual case, he says.

Simon Öhman understands that, but still feels hopeful that it will come to an end.

– Now I get to appear on TV and ask everyone to block and report that account so that it might disappear at some point.