Disclaimer: In Real Life is a platform for everyday people to share their experiences and voices. All articles are personal stories and do not necessarily echo In Real Life’s sentiments.
A woman reached out to IRL to share her story of how she was conned by a Nigerian man into sleeping with him and carrying his baby, allegedly so that he could get citizenship in the US. This is her story.
I’m Aria, an American photojournalist based in New York. A few months ago, I came to Malaysia to do some coverage on environmental issues for my client.
It was in Kuala Lumpur where I met a man who called himself Chris. We saw each other at the bar of the hotel I stayed at and he struck up a conversation with me.
He bought me a drink and we chit-chatted for a few hours. He was educated, drove a fancy car and lived in an upscale apartment in KL.
He took me on a few dates around KL, and I met his friend Mike and a few other of his work friends. They were all high-rollers, living in fancy KL apartments in the Bukit Bintang area.
After a week of him taking me to fancy restaurants, clubs, and bars, we started spending a lot more time at his apartment. I spent the remainder of my stay in Malaysia there.
Image: The man named Chris. Faces have been blurred by IRL for anonymity.
One day, he asked me if I would ever consider settling down with him.
Although I really enjoyed my time with him, I said no. I love my digital nomad life, and I had no intention of settling down back home in the States.
I told him so, and while he seemed disappointed, he accepted my conditions. We carried on dating casually for the next couple of weeks.
One day, he asked me if I wanted to take an STD test
We were in his car on the way to a new restaurant, chatting about nothing in particular when he popped the question:
“Aria, would you like to take a STD test?”
He said this casually, almost like it was an afterthought. But I immediately felt like something was off.
“Why are you asking me that? We were practicing safe sex, weren’t we?” I said.
“I know, but I just want to be sure,” he said, squeezing my hand reassuringly.
Alarm bells were going off in my head. I started thinking back to the times we were intimate and tried to remember if we had ever stopped using a condom.
As far as I knew, I had never removed our protection while we were getting intimate.
“Did you do something behind my back? Why are you suddenly asking me this?” I said suspiciously.
“Like I said, there’s always a 0.01% chance the condom broke. So I’d like to know, just in case.”
“No, I don’t think it’s necessary,” I said flatly. All my life, I’ve practiced safe sex, and I’ve never gotten an STD.
We bickered and argued about this back and forth till we reached the restaurant. In the end, I stood firm on my decision, and I didn’t go for the STD test.
But for the rest of the trip, a feeling of foreboding was slowly creeping up on me. Did something happen while we were intimate without me knowing?
I took a pregnancy test at Bumrungrad Hospital, Bangkok.
Image: Screenshot of the pregnancy test. Photos shared from Bumrungrad International Hospital in Bangkok.
After a month of living in KL, I was assigned to a new beat in Thailand, and I flew to Bangkok in early May.
The feeling that something wasn’t right kept hounding me while I was working in Thailand.
After two weeks of fretting over it, I couldn’t take it any more and decided to get tested at Bumrungrad International Hospital in Bangkok.
When the results got back to me, I got the shock of my life – I was 5 weeks pregnant!
I immediately called Chris and told him the news.
“Chris, I’m pregnant. How is this possible? What did you do? Did you remove the condom?” I said angrily.
“Babe, I swear I have no idea how this happened!” He replied unconvincingly. “Why don’t you keep our baby, at least until he is born?” he asked.
“Are you kidding me? I told you I never wanted to settle down! How are you going to fix this?” I said, outraged.
He talked about how he always wanted to be a father and it was also his baby so he should have a say in its future.
I told him he was crazy, I was clear from the beginning about not wanting to get pregnant.
He then asked me if it’s about money. “Do you want money to bring the baby to term? How much do you want?” he said.
At this point, I started feeling like he just seemed totally fixated on having a baby. I cut the call and took some time to clear my head.
I started to suspect that Chris tried to impregnate me just to obtain US citizenship by fatherhood
After thinking things through, I started having doubts about my relationship with Chris. I started to wonder, why did he seem so interested in whether I was going to keep the baby?
I thought back to a strange conversation I had with Chris’s friend Mike a few weeks ago. While Chris was out of earshot, Mike asked me if I’d ever consider settling down with Chris, and I said “No, why?”
He replied: “It’s everyone’s dream here to get married and settle down with a US citizen, so that they could get US citizenship.”
I recalled another conversation Chris and I had in May. He said his student visa had expired in April 2023, and the immigration officer had told him he needed to leave Malaysia because he was overstaying.
I started wondering if Chris had gotten me intentionally pregnant – so that he might be able to claim US citizenship through his relationship with my child, instead of having to go back to Nigeria.
I confronted Chris and asked if he intentionally got me pregnant. He immediately denied everything. He asked me, “Did I rape you?”
Image: The Whatsapp conversation between me and Chris.
I replied: “Yes, stealthing is rape. When you take it upon yourself to secretly ejaculate inside a woman without her consent and try to cover it up, then it’s rape.”
I flew back to Malaysia to make a police report for sexual assault via stealthing
When I flew back to Malaysia, I immediately went to the police station in Kuala Lumpur to make a report for sexual assault.
A female inspector came into the room to listen to my story. I told her the whole story from start to finish and she noted down everything in the report.
“A woman cannot consent to sex if the conditions of having sex are revoked.” I told the female inspector.
“If he had removed the condom, then it means I did not give my consent to it. So he not only had sex against my will, he got me pregnant against my will,” I added.
Image: Police report made at Dang Wangi Police Station on 10th June 2023.
The female inspector was sympathetic to my plight, and told me she would take the case to her higher ups.
Unfortunately, much later I received a call from the police station telling me that they could not pursue the case.
I was disappointed and frustrated. If men like Chris were really trying to get women in Malaysia pregnant, even those who did not want to, something had to be done to spread awareness that this despicable crime exists.
I decided to take my story to the press. I wanted to make sure I had enough proof, so I started searching online for a private investigator to hire.
I hired a Private Investigator to follow his every move
I found a local private investigator online and paid him a few thousand ringgit to follow Chris for a week. He quickly got to work and put a tracker on Chris’ car.
Images: The GPS tracker was attached under one of the cars owned by Chris.
Over the next few days, the PI sent me photos and videos of Chris. Apparently, Chris only ever travels between a few expensive hotels in one particular area in Bukit Bintang.
“He also seems to spend a lot of time in hotel bars,” said the PI.
Image: The PI discovered that he travels between The Ritz-Carlton, JW Marriott, The Westin, and others within the central KL area.
The PI also did a bit of digging on him and found that he has a wife in Thailand with one child. The PI also found pictures of him at parties with lots of asian women, and pictures of him on a private yacht.
Apparently, he takes women on these lavish trips and dazzles them with his “wealth”, then I suppose, he sleeps with them and tries to get them pregnant.
Perhaps they are even his sugar mummies that he meets at expensive hotels, such as how he met me.
Image: Chris posing with some unknown women and unknown associates. Faces have been blurred by IRL for anonymity.
After I confronted him with the images, he was spooked by all these photos of him that I found. He denied this was his plan all along, but then he also asked me if I wanted money from him.
He offered me USD20,000 to keep me quiet. I refused, saying, “If you didn’t do anything wrong, why are you trying to buy me off?”
After sharing this story to In Real Life Malaysia, I headed straight back home to the US.
Although I am traumatized, I’ve chosen to speak up about this
Now I’m in the US and I’m about to have the abortion in New York where it is legal.
I just want to say that this experience has scarred me and changed me. I’m no longer the same person I was before I came to Malaysia.
I thought I’d met a sweet guy who genuinely cared for me, but it turns out he wanted my body for his own personal gain. I’d never thought that this sexual assault could happen to me.
If it could happen to me, imagine how many local Malaysian women would be taken in by his show of wealth and his charm?
I’m sharing this story to spread awareness of such despicable sexual crimes perpetrated by amoral men against unsuspecting women.
It is illegal in California, the UK, and Australia to have unprotected sex with a woman if she did not consent to it, and felons can be charged in court in these countries.
I hope with this story, the practice of stealthing (rape by deception) will be legally recognised in Malaysia as a crime so that men like this will be brought to justice.
If you are a victim of sex trafficking or baby trafficking, please contact the All Women’s Action Society (AWAM):
All Women’s Action Society (AWAM)
85, Jalan 21/1, Sea Park, 46300 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia ( Find us on Google Maps)
Office Phone (programmes / admin) : 03-78774221
Telenita Helpline (counselling and legal information) : 03-78770224
Email (general enquiries) : awam@awam.org.my
Aria is a US-based photojournalist who documents wildlife for a living. She travels the world doing freelance work for clients. Her work can be found on www.planesandpixels.com.
For more stories like this, read:
I’m A Mat-Salleh ‘Rice Chaser’ & Here’s Why M’sian Women Are The Easiest To ‘Date’
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