Woman says she was targeted by a con artist on Hinge who stole her information

A woman has claimed that she was targeted by a con artist she met on a popular dating app, while revealing exactly how he tricked her into giving him her personal information by claiming he was in the CIA. 

Samantha B. Hills, 31, from Chicago, Illinois, opened up about her relationship with Matthew DeRolf, 33, on social media to warn others — particularly women — not to fall prey to his charm. 

After dating for several months and having him move into her condo, she learned that he had conned dozens of people over the past 15 years and is being investigated by the FBI. 

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‘Matt is impersonating federal employees, including the National Security Agency, The Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the United States Secret Service. He is being investigated by the FBI for several felonies including domestic terrorism,’ she wrote in an Instagram post featuring photos of him. 

‘Several email threads and financial records related to Matt show him selling personal details and graphic images and videos of his victims,’ she continued. 

‘So far 30 female and male victims from the last 15 years have come forward across California, New York, Maryland, Wisconsin, Texas, and Illinois.’

Hills explained that he had been removed from Hinge and Bumble, but is still operating on other dating apps.   

‘Matt continues to terrorize my close friends and family through identity theft and cyber hacks,’ she ended her post, asking anyone who has any other additional information about him to DM her.  

One of her friends shared a similar warning on Reddit, and after the posts went viral, Hills appeared on Heather McDonald’s ‘Juicy Scoop‘ podcast to tell her story. 

Hills told McDonald that she matched with DeRolf on Hinge on May 30, and they went on a walk to get to know each other the next day. 

She explained that at the time of their first meeting, there were protests and lootings going on in Chicago, which added an ‘extra layer of vulnerability’ to their conversation. 

He told her he was doing contracting work for the government and had started a tech company in Silicon Valley called Aerial Intelligence. Hills noted that while DeRolf did found Aerial Intelligence, he falsely claimed that he had sold the company to Pepsi for $15 million. 

To Hills, DeRolf came across as charming, trustworthy, and even a bit nerdy. She invited him to attend a barbecue later that day. When he offered to bring a case of beer, she explained that had been sober for two years. 

While some men have had problems with her sobriety in the past, she said DeRolf was immediately understanding and claimed he didn’t drink that much either. 

DeRolf charmed both her and her friends, and she recalled how he told her that he had never dated anyone he had met on an app before. He said he wanted to get married and start his own family — the same things that she wanted. 

Hills’ curiosity about him peeked when he took a call from someone he claimed was one of his friends from the FBI. He said the agent had told him to stay inside because the protests and looters were headed their way. 

At the end of the night, he deemed it too dangerous for him to go home to his Trump Tower apartment. 

Hills already had a girlfriend staying with her for the night, so she put him up in the guest room. They kissed before parting ways, and she remembered thinking that DeRolf was different, that he might be ‘the one.’

She and her friend went for a run the next morning, and when they came back, DeRolf was unloading the dishwasher and wiping down the countertops. 

DeRolf continued to ingratiate himself by offering to help her get a bike rack installed on her car before going to her family home in Michigan.

The first time they had sex, he said he hadn’t been with anyone else for a year.  

The protests were still going on in Chicago, and he made her feel safe during a time of uncertainty. He ended up coming home with Hill and winning her mom’s approval. 

Within a week of dating, they were talking non-stop and were saying that they loved each other. DeRolf claimed to be living month-to-month at an apartment in Trump Tower, and it was her idea to have him move into her condo about a month into their relationship. 

She later learned that the apartment was actually leased to DeRolf’s father. While he had some of his stuff there, it was never actually his. 

Before he officially moved in with her, he told her that he was in the CIA and if they were to live together, they would need to do a background check on her and make sure she was not a known terrorist. 

DeRolf explained that they would need to know all the countries she had visited in the last 10 years along with some personal information in order for her to be cleared. 

Hills gave him her passport, her Social Security card, and her driver’s license. She recalled how he told her she was ‘cleared’ after a brief phone call. 

As soon as he moved into her home, he installed a new security system with a camera and sensors. He redid all the wiring in her condo, and he also got them a new WiFi router. 

Hills thought he was making sure everything was up to date so he could work from home and didn’t think much of it. 

DeRolf would often talk about his success and business deals, even claiming to be working with Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker amid the coronavirus pandemic. 

She started seeing cracks in his persona about a week into him moving in. He had claimed to be ‘super active’ and really into healthy eating, just like she is, but when he started living with her, he would consume five or six energy drinks a day and chow down on fast-food. 

He blamed the pandemic for his eating habits, but when she told him she was looking for someone who shared the same values as she did, he promised to do better. 

DeRolf was also incredibly messy, and she was constantly cleaning up after him. Although they were early red flags, her therapist had pointed out that these types of frustrations are common when a couple first moves in together. 

When they first started dating, he was great about paying for things. One time, he called a restaurant where she was dining with friends and took care of the bill as a surprise. 

However, Hills noticed that money started to get tight. When he had moved in, he had agreed to pay for half the mortgage and living expenses, but he never kept his end of the bargain. 

She recalled how she had asked him to buy a large rug from Target for the outdoor patio, but it never arrived. He claimed a mistake had been made with the original order. Then he had purchased the smallest one available. 

She wasn’t sure if it was an honest mistake or was a sign he didn’t have any money.

He never wanted to go out to dinner, and he feigned migraines when they were supposed to go out and meet her friends. 

Hills eventually sat him down to talk about what was going on, and he claimed he had never spent money like had with her. He said his bank account was low and he had to dip into the $15 million he had tied up in investments.

He assured her that he was waiting on a $250,000 wire transfer and would start contributing to their expenses. The wire transfer never came through, and he told her that his father had messed up the paperwork. 

When Hills pressed him for more information, he started to gaslight her, insisting that she was accusing him of being a liar. 

The condo started to feel too small for both of them, and they agreed to buy a home in the suburbs in the fall or winter with a budget of $3 million. 

Hills started looking almost immediately and found her dream home for $3.85 million. DeRolf was immediately on board, telling her and their real estate agent that he just needed to speak to his financial advisers.

But he soon changed his tune, claiming that he was told the ‘market is volatile’ and it was ‘not the best time to make an investment.’ Despite his alleged reservations, they agreed to make an offer for $3 million.

After two months together, Hills had listed her condo with the goal of using the money from the sale to help with the down payment. 

Then, DeRolf dropped a bomb on her, saying they were moving ‘too fast.’ If she needed more space, he would move out.   

When she confronted him, he started to cry and said he was bleeding money. He didn’t want to tell her what was going on because he felt like a failure and thought he could turn it around. 

Around this time, he started to wear scrubs to his tech job at NorthShore Hospital, telling Hills that he wore them because he thought they were comfortable. She later found out he told one woman he was a surgeon. 

Honesty is an important part of Hills’ recovery, and his lies weren’t sitting well with her. She had not only been paying for their home, but she also had given him money to see an eye doctor, to get his glasses fixed, and to see a psychiatrist to help him with his ADHD. 

Hills made a spreadsheet and calculated that he owed her about $5,000. Their relationship started to unravel as soon as she asked him for the money. 

‘He goes, “If that’s how you feel, I’m just going to move out,”‘ she recalled him telling her.   

When she insisted that he still owed her the money, he feigned disbelief that she was going to ruin their relationship over something so insignificant.  

Things came to a head when Hills accidentally set off the fire alarm while making lunch. DeRolf was supposed to be working in Glenview, which was about 30 to 40 minutes away from their condo, but he burst through the door less than 10 minutes after the alarm had gone off. 

Hills realized she didn’t know him at all and told him that he had to be moved out of her home by 5 p.m. that night. She also insisted that he take the security system with him because she didn’t want him to have any access to her. 

Hills later learned from one of her guy friends that DeRolf had done the same thing to another woman he knew. His relationship with this other woman ended just two weeks before they had started dating. His claim that he had been celibate for a year before they met was yet another lie.  

Her relationship with DeRolf, who had also had an accident in her car, had cost her roughly $15,000 in damages. She has since reached out to the FBI about him and put in an emergency order of protection, but she still fears for her safety. 

Hills said that DeRolf drove by her car one day and threw a golf ball at her that shattered her windshield. She had to get a new cellphone because he had an app installed on her old phone that tracked her location and gave him access to her text messages, phone calls, and emails. 

She has learned that DeRolf’s father Mark DeRolf, owner of Comhar Capital Markets, is currently being investigated for fraud. She also recently discovered a fraudulent CIA badge that had arrived in one of DeRolf’s packages.   

He still has access to her information, and she had to freeze her credit. She believes he recently tried to buy a used car using her information.

After she shared her Instagram post about him being a fraud, he FaceTimed her to ask why she was doing this to him. 

‘How many women have you done this to, Matt?’ she asked him. ‘Thousands,’ he allegedly responded.   

‘I said, “I want you to never do this again to another woman, and I’m not going to stop until they all know who you are and what you’re capable of,”‘ she recalled. 

Hills said DeRolf started yelling threats, and that was the last she has heard from him.

She has since come in contact with a number of people who have similar stories about their time with DeRolf, who is still allegedly preying on women on dating apps. 

Hills also recently appeared on the On My Mind series, where she read an open letter about the man she once thought she would spend the rest of her life with.   

‘One thing is clear: Matt has a type. That type is an independent, bright, compassionate, vulnerable, and trusting woman,’ she said. ‘He preyed on all of us, our willingness to support him, to confide in him, to open up our social circles and families to him. Like a chameleon, he changed his story and experiences to align with those of his victims.’

While he had told her that he didn’t drink alcohol and couldn’t do drugs because of his job with the CIA, he drank heavily and abused Adderall and cocaine with many of the other women he was with.   

‘Matt would cry on command when caught in a lie. He would pretend to come clean and again gain back out trust and sympathy,’ she continued. ‘Money was always tied up. He asked several of the women, including myself, to sign legal documents stating we would be the beneficiary of his trust and assets should he die. 

‘We paid for his medical expenses and for him to get help with his mental health. From his food to his housing, we covered all of his living expenses. Across the victims, Matt owes several hundred thousand dollars.’ 

Hills had learned that he was back on Hinge a month prior to their breakup to search for his next victim.   

‘Matt is a serial con artist and scammer,’ she stressed. ‘His tales range from CIA agent, NSA employee, multi-millionaire, tech entrepreneur, chief technology officer, and surgeon. He is a serial cheater, stalker, drug- and sex-addict. 

‘Not a single woman has not shared her story publicly because of the shame they experienced. Not a single victim has ever connected the dots. They all thought they were alone and suffered in silence,’ she explained. ‘That stops today.’