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| - WHAT WAS CLAIMED
A Sydney-born financial trader has posted images of bank transactions featuring the vast returns she makes for her clients.
OUR VERDICT
False. The bank transactions are fake and the images of the ‘trader’ have been taken from the social media account of an American businesswoman.
A bespectacled woman is urging residents of the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea (PNG) to trust in her to invest their hard-earned money.
But the woman pictured is not Allen Jessica, a self-described Australian National University (ANU)-educated gun financial trader, as her Facebook profile claims.
It is US businesswoman, author and TEDx speaker Heather Monahan.
"Jessica" (archived here) is just one of more than 100 alleged financial traders using deception and false images to target Facebook users in the Pacific Islands.
AAP FactCheck has analysed dozens of these accounts as part of a special investigation.
Jessica, who claims to be have been educated at ANU and Texas A&M University, specifically targets those from the Solomon Islands and PNG with a promise of quick money for investing with her.
But not everything Jessica states appears to be accurate. Her profile picture features an image of a blond, bespectacled woman working at a laptop.
A reverse image search reveals this is not Jessica, or anyone involved in crypto trading. Instead, it is an image of Monahan taken from a 2023 LinkedIn post.
Jessica tries to pass herself off as the Massachusetts-born businesswoman with other images (example here) which can also be traced back to here.
She captions this September 2023 post with: "Appreciate where you are in your journey of life and have faith you'll reach your destination, even if you had hoped to be further."
But the image can be traced to Monahan's Instagram account and an August 2022 post.
There is no suggestion Monahan is in any way connected to Jessica's account.
Jessica has also posted numerous images of bank statements and payment notifications as proof she has earned her clients huge sums of money.
These include statements and notifications supposedly from Bank of South Pacific (here, here, here, here and here).
There are clear inconsistencies with some of these images, including changes in capital letters and the spacing between words in notifications supposedly from the same bank, for example here and here.
A representative of BSP confirmed with AAP FactCheck that the notifications are fake or doctored.
The Verdict
The claim that a Sydney-born financial trader has posted images of bank transactions featuring the vast returns she makes for her clients is false.
The pictured woman is not an Australian trader but instead an American businesswoman, author and motivational speaker.
BSP confirmed the depicted bank transfers and statements are fake.
False — The claim is inaccurate.
AAP FactCheck is an accredited member of the International Fact-Checking Network. To keep up with our latest fact checks, follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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