Recently, Onyeka Ehie has taken over a side of TikTok with her multi-part “Danish Deception” story. In it, she revealed the whirlwind romance she had with a man claiming to be a wealthy Danish prince, Olympian and investor. She explained how this so-called Olympian prince scammed her, her friends and her family out of roughly $400,000 USD. Although this incident can be dismissed as a dramatic personal tragedy, I think it illuminates a broader pattern of financial exploitation that mirrors the logic of pyramid schemes.
At first glance, romantic scamming and pyramid schemes may seem worlds apart, but I think they both depend on psychological mechanisms such as rapid trust building, fantasy construction and a manufactured sense of urgency that draws a person in. In both cases, the victim is sold a dream to buy into, literally.
To understand these parallels, we must begin with the hook — the promise of a future too good to be true. The Danish deceiver’s presentation of himself made him seem like the kind of man you only meet once in a lifetime. I think this might be why Ehie ignored his prominent red flags. It is not every day you meet a man with a royal title, who has competed at the highest level as an athlete and has an incredible investment portfolio.
Similarly, pyramid schemes attract recruits through a heightened illusion of wealth. Victims are sold the idea that if they join and pay their dues, they will rise within the ranks and make a lot of money. They feel like they are being given a rare chance for rapid financial growth. In both cases, the victim feels like they have stumbled upon something extraordinary.
These promises work, not because people are naive, but because emotional and economic pressure can make the fantasy of sudden stability very appealing. I feel this emotional manipulation is crucial for the success of a financial scam. It makes victims fall so in love with the idea of a better life that they suspend doubt and fall headfirst into the fantasy.
After the dream is sold and trust is secured, both the romance scammers and pyramid scheme recruiters present the “financial investment” as being temporary. In the Danish Deception, the Olympian investor constantly assured Ehie he had money, it was just that “his bank account was frozen by the Danish government” or his friend “needed money for an urgent investment.” She was always made to believe that she, her family and friends would be paid back the money they loaned the prince. I think by framing each loan as a small stepping-stone toward a shared future, he left little room for Ehie to realize something was seriously off.
I see pyramid schemes as operating with the same psychological script. Recruits are told that the initial buy-in — purchasing inventory, starter kits or training retreats — is merely a momentary cost that will be recovered once the recruits rise in the business. The structure of the scheme relies on people believing that they will get back more than they give. But, just like Ehie’s prince, the promised payoff never materializes. Instead, the demands escalate.
One of the clearest lessons I’ve learned from both of these forms of scamming is that if anything seems too good to be true, it’s probably because it is — it’s probably fake. There isn’t much likelihood of making a lot of money without having to work hard for it, and anyone who would sell that idea is a liar. Similarly, the probability that you will meet a perfect prince is unrealistic. In both cases, a high level of caution should be exercised no matter how attractive the dream being sold may be.
Ultimately, to me, the Danish Deception is more than just a sensational TikTok scandal — it is a perfect reminder of how financial exploitation thrives when a person’s emotions are involved. Ehie’s story exposes the vulnerabilities that scammers deliberately target, such as the desire for security and the hope of upward mobility. Romance scammers and pyramid schemers have that in common.
