Sydney doctor reveals details of romance scam by Andrew Pearce

Sydney's Dr Sadhana Govindasamy met Andrew Pearce on a dating app and said they hit it off immediately after their first date. Pearce was charming, charismatic, and very well-spoken, and Dr Sadhana was completely smitten and head over heels for him.

In an interview to A Current Affair, Dr Sadhana revealed that Pearce also moved in with her and told him that he was buying a massive property where they would move together. Pearce told her that he was a private equity high flyer who ran his own hedge fund and he had several racehorses. They even planned a holiday to Hamilton Island as they had some free time in their hands and Sadhana even transferred half of the alleged expense to him.

On the day of their departure, Sadhana got stood up as she was waiting for him on the street. When she called him, he said he had met with an accident, and then Sadhana had to pay his hospital bills too. Sadhana said in the interview that she came across news articles about a serial fraidster Andrew Pearce.

One 2019 report claimed that one Andrew Pearce conned a fellow prison mare out of $75,000 falsely claiming that he was a multimillionaire gambler with horses that had run in the Melbourne Cup. He was in prison after he conned $13,000 from a woman he briefly dated, the report said.

Sadhana then contacted real estate agent Richard Simeon to ask if Pearce was buying any house from him. Simeon said that he showed the property to Pearce but at that time Pearce was with another woman and he told Simeon that he was a banker and was looking for the posh flat to move into with his partner who was with him at that time. But Pearce did not make any offer and it was just a convincing performance.

Sadhana said this was her ticket out of the toxic situation she was in. She went to the police, and then things got scary as Pearce started threatening Dr Sadhana's friend. He was calling Dr Sadhana incessantly until he was arrested. "I think he's a psychopath. As a human being and a medical doctor, I am convinced so," Sadhana said. Dr Sadhana said she believed Pearce and vouched for him to her family and friends; what he did was a betrayal.