Aussie coppers are worried about a trend among online scammers to target lonely Christians.

Apparently scammers trawl Christian websites in search of lonely hearts and generous souls to target for romance fraud, with an insidious new religious flavour that appeals to values of faith. Queensland police Fraud Squad chief Detective Inspector Brian Hay said that the scammers were going into Christian chat rooms and a lot of the time when they ask for money and they always invent a religious spin to the scam story.

In just the first six months of this year more than $4.5 million has been sent by Australians to Nigeria. Police revealed two out of three victims of romance fraud are women, who scammers target on social networking pages, dating sites and Christian chat rooms.

Christians are seen as a soft touch because they respond to guilt trips better, coppers think.