In an email to one British man, Anna wrote: "I wish I could be with you. I'm sure that together we will have a lot of fun and spend great time!

"I'm very caring person and loving, I will do for you everything to make you feel good.

It sounded just too good to be true and, of course, it was. In reality, "Anna" was part of a scam masterminded in Yoshkar-Ola, the scale of which was revealed last week to The Mail on Sunday by the FSB, the Russian secret service, after a series of raids.

Thousands of people, including many lonely and gullible British men, have lost large amounts of money after entering into correspondence with women on websites, naively beguiled by their warm words, suggestive chat and the sexy pictures they attach to their emails.

They never saw the money or heard from the women again.