THE GUARDIAN – Apr 7 – Ukraine's internet romance industry is booming, despite the unrest. Odessa is the biggest hub. There are legions of western men in town meeting with young women they have met online. Anastasia International is one of the companies organizing romance tours to Odessa. Men pay for every minute they chat online to a woman and ~$5K for a week in Odessa hoping to find a wife. Many of the men on the tour are patently unrealistic. The majority of them fall victim to a number of sophisticated scams. Anastasia International, while not directly colluding in the scams, runs a highly profitable business model (annual projected revenue of $140M) that allows them to flourish. The company insists that it weeds out scams whenever it finds them, and has banned some women from the site. It also says it will reimburse clients who fall victims to scams, and provides advice on how to avoid them.
by Shaun Walker
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