Five money launderers have been convicted of cheating 40 victims - some of them divorced or widowed - out of a total of £3.25m in a large-scale romance fraud scam.

Losses averaged £81,250 per victim and some victims were left penniless.

Romance fraud involves crooks striking up bogus relationships, usually online, with vulnerable victims.

The victims are persuaded to hand over money to the fraudsters who they falsely believe they are involved with romantically.

While there were 40 confirmed victims of the five crooks, many of them recently divorced or widowed, authorities suspect as many as 99 people were conned by the five.

At Guildford Crown Court this week Fawaz Ali, 27, Ebenezer Tackie, 42, and Michael Quartey, 28, were found guilty of money laundering-related offences after a trial.

Earlier Kwabena Edusei, 36, pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to defraud and money laundering, while George Melseaux, 40, pleaded guilty to charges of money laundering and possession of ID documents with intent to misuse them for fraudulent purposes.

The court heard that as part of the fraud, Mr Edusei and others created fake profiles and fictional biographies on dating websites to trick their victims.

The criminals used “flirtatious language” to manipulate people into thinking they were entering into a genuine relationship. However this was just a cover for the fraudsters to ask victims for money for fake reasons.

The bogus reasons for asking for money included loans to pay for business trips gone wrong, fines being incurred in remote locations and urgently needing money to pay these off, or a stolen wallet.

The Crown Prosecution Service said the victims transferred money to the bank accounts of the defendants or even sent cash in the post.

The romance fraud was repeated many times until the victims had no money left or became suspicious and stopped making payments and alerted the authorities. Payments from victims were laundered through the bank accounts of the criminals.

The total amount of laundered funds across all accounts is estimated to be £3.25 million. The men will be sentenced at a later date.

Jane Mitchell of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “The criminals here showed complete disregard for their victims who were met on an online dating website for the sole purpose of exploiting and scamming them out of much needed money.

"They caused terrible emotional distress to his victims – who were often recently divorced or widowed. None of them had any of the money they thought they were loaning repaid.

“We want to encourage all those who think they’ve been a victim of romance fraud not to feel embarrassed or ashamed but rather to report it. A fraud like this only succeeds if there is a willing network to launder this criminal money through their bank accounts."