My fiancé, Idris, called off our engagement without a real explanation. A few days later, I heard a knock at my door. I thought it might be him, coming to apologize. But when I opened it, a police officer stood there instead, holding a large manila envelope with my name written in black marker.
“Are you Salma Nouri?” he asked. I nodded, confused and already sweating. My heart pounded. He handed me the envelope and said, “This was left anonymously at the station. It’s… unusual. We thought you should have it.”
I stood there, barely remembering to thank him. After he left, I sat on the couch, turning the envelope over in my hands before finally opening it. Inside were ten photographs, a copy of a lease, and a flash drive.
The photos hit me first—Idris, arm-in-arm with another woman. In some, they were holding hands on a beach I didn’t recognize. In others, they were hugging outside a modest suburban house. The lease was for that same house, signed by Idris and a woman named Nerissa Salgado.
I dropped everything onto the coffee table and sat back, stunned. My phone was already in my hand before I even realized it, my fingers shaking as I considered calling Idris. But what would I say? What could he possibly say?
I didn’t call him. I didn’t even cry. I just sat there, frozen in a silent, shaking fog.
The next morning, I plugged in the flash drive. There were three video files. The first was shaky, recorded from what looked like a car parked across the street. Idris and Nerissa walked out of the house holding grocery bags, kissing at the door.
The second video showed them arguing loudly. Nerissa screamed, “You think I’m gonna be second choice?” Idris replied, “You think I’m gonna throw away what she has?” I rewound that part five times.
She. Me?
The third video broke me. It was a screen recording of a voice message—Idris talking to a friend (or maybe Nerissa). His voice was low and cold: “I just needed the ring to keep Salma happy while I got the business loan. Once that clears, I’m gone. She’s not gonna know what hit her.”
I leaned forward, bile rising in my throat. “She’s not gonna know what hit her.” Six months earlier, I had co-signed a loan with him—supposedly for his catering business, his “dream.”
I texted my bank login to myself from my computer and grabbed my phone. I hadn’t checked the account since before the engagement was called off—I’d been too fragile to face anything that reminded me of Idris.
But there it was. A $35,000 loan. Under my name only. Idris was nowhere on it.
I couldn’t breathe. I had co-signed it, but he had altered the paperwork. Somewhere along the way, he had swapped me from co-signer to sole borrower.
I called the bank, and the woman confirmed it. “Looks like a revision came in via signed PDF—Docusigned from your email.”
I never signed anything like that.
I filed a fraud report immediately. The bank said they’d investigate but needed a police report. So I went to the station. The officer at the desk was the same man who had brought me the envelope—Officer Wells.
He led me into a small room and had me repeat everything. As I spoke, he grew quiet. Then he said, “You should see this.” He left and returned with another officer and a laptop. They showed me a photo—Nerissa.
“She filed a missing person report on Idris three days ago,” he said. “She said he told her he was going back to his ex—presumably you—and then disappeared the next day. No calls. No texts.”
So he ghosted her, too?
Officer Wells said they’d been trying to track him, but he had vanished—left both jobs, stopped using his phone, and drained an account in someone else’s name. They asked if I had any recent photos, messages, or anything that might help.
I gave them the flash drive.
The days that followed were a blur. I was half-devastated, half-enraged. My pride was shattered, and my credit was circling the drain. I cried in grocery aisles, snapped at my mother for asking how I was, and avoided every friend who texted, “Just checking in 💛.”
Then I got a call. A woman from the fraud division. She sounded hesitant. “We pulled the IP address from the email used to change the loan documents,” she said. “It matches your home Wi-Fi.”
I nearly dropped the phone.
At first, I didn’t understand. Then it clicked—he did it at my place. On my couch. Maybe even while I was in the kitchen making dinner.
My stomach turned. I asked if they could prove it wasn’t me. She said that would be tough.
That was the lowest point—knowing he had not only betrayed me but had done it with a smile on his face while I made him turmeric tea and listened to him vent about late payments.
I started seeing a lawyer. He said we’d need to find Idris to get any real traction.
One week later, I got a DM on Instagram—from Nerissa.
“Hey. I think we got played. Can we talk?”
We met at a tiny café downtown. She was taller than I’d imagined, poised—the kind of woman Idris always claimed he found “intimidating.” She brought a folder full of screenshots, receipts, and notes.
She had been dating him for two years.
I blinked. “But we’ve been engaged for ten months.”
Her face didn’t change. “I found your photos in his Google Drive. That’s how I found your name. Then I saw your engagement photos.”
She said she had confronted him. He claimed I was a “former fiancée who couldn’t let go” and that I had “mental health issues” and he was “too nice” to block me.
I laughed out loud. “He said the same about you.”
She nodded. “Classic.”
Together, we pieced it all together. Idris had been running the same scam—wooing women, using their names to get loans, then disappearing. But it got messy. Nerissa figured he used her for the down payment on the house, but when she started pressuring him to get married, he panicked and reactivated things with me.
When I co-signed the loan, he swapped his plan again.
“But I think he stole from someone else, too,” she said, pulling out a business card. “His ex before me. I talked to her. She said he took $8k from her savings ‘for a food truck.’”
We reported everything.
Officer Wells was stunned. “He’s got a whole pattern,” he muttered, rubbing his jaw.
They elevated the case.
And then—three weeks later—they found him.
In Austin, Texas. Working under a fake name at a fusion food cart.
I nearly laughed when I saw the surveillance photo. He had a new beard and dyed hair, but I’d know that smug face anywhere.
The arrest came fast. He was charged with identity fraud, financial fraud, and falsifying documents.
But the best part?
They recovered $22,000 in an offshore account in my name—he’d stashed it, thinking he’d use it “for later.” The bank reimbursed the rest after the fraud case closed.
Nerissa got her money back too—through her bank and a separate fraud suit.
We stayed in touch—not as friends, exactly, but like war veterans.
Strangely, I came out of it cleaner than I expected.
I learned to read the signs—the gaslighting, the love-bombing, the way Idris never quite answered questions about the future without pivoting to something romantic or vague.
He wasn’t a criminal mastermind. Just a coward with charm and a spreadsheet.
And even though it nearly broke me, I’m thankful it happened before the wedding.
I’m dating again now—slowly, cautiously. My new guy, Eron, helps his mom run a bookstore. We met when I asked if they carried a true crime memoir about financial scams.
He smiled and said, “We do, but I can recommend something better.”
I asked him out three weeks later.
Now, we take it day by day. He knows the whole story. Didn’t flinch. Said he’d been burned before, too.
Trust doesn’t come easy these days—but I’m learning.
If you’ve ever been played, scammed, or heartbroken in a way that made you question everything, I promise: Healing is messy, but it’s real. And the people who hurt you don’t get the last word.
We do.