Money is irresistible.

When a pig buyer, Alan (not his real name), was driving on a Negros road, he saw a male foreigner waving dollars out the window of the car ahead of his. Alan stopped by the side of the road thinking the foreigner wanted to exchange his money for pesos.

The foreigner got off his car and approached Alan in his car. He asked where Alan’s money was while showing the dollars.

Alan said he had no money but the stranger was insistent and even checked his bag containing a small amount of cash, GMA News reports. A woman companion of the foreigner then got out of their car and approached Alan.

Alan was mesmerized by the beautiful foreigner, who also asked where his money was. She noticed something bulky in his pocket and pointed to it. The woman told Alan to show it and surprisingly he obliged.

The foreigners then took his money and left. Alan said he did not notice that he had lost the P200,000 he was carrying as capital for a piggery to the beautiful foreigner until later. He believed he was hypnotized by the foreigner, according to GMA News.

Meanwhile, two Japanese women in their 20s bought a sports car for a 22-year-old unemployed man, Mitsuhiro Shiraishi, after meeting him on social media in February. They also transferred money to Shiraishi and started living with him in March.

Police in Osaka Prefecture recently arrested Shiraishi after an online gamer one of the two women had met told him that they were being held against their will.

When questioned by officers, Shiraishi confessed that he pretended to be someone else and sent the two women threatening emails more than 2,000 times, making them believe that they were being targeted by hostile forces, and making various demands under the pretext of protecting them, Japan Today (JT) reports.

Shiraishi kept the women confined in his apartment by convincing them that it was dangerous to leave because “enemy forces that wanted to harm them” were outside the building, according to JT.

“I brainwashed the two women to satisfy my desire to have everything I wanted in order to live an easy life,” the con man was quoted as telling police, who charged him with fraud and extortion.