A toyboy from the Carribean has spoken out after allegedly leaving a British mum stranded and drained of her £40,000 life savings.
Claire Alcantara, from Dudley, West Midlands, claims she has been left "penniless" after marrying Dominic Republic student Franklin Alcantara.
The 46-year-old and Franklin, who's 12 years her junior, married in 2013 - after striking up a romance online.
Clare discussed her ordeal with the Sunday Mirror and said she had been left stranded abroad.
She heartbreakingly revealed: “I’m heartbroken and penniless.”
But in the UK, Franklin has spoken out.
He told Birmingham Live: “We had a good relationship in England, then Claire said we had to go to Dominican Republic.
"I wanted to stay in England."
He added: “I lied and said I was going to Punta Cana. If I told her I was going to England, Claire would have said no because it was too cold.
"Yes, I had a new girlfriend, but she dumped me after Claire contacted her.”
He insisted Claire did not spend £40,000 on him and claims they both bought the car and alleges he gave her £3,000 back as their relationship fell apart.
He also denied their joint account was solely in his name, claiming: “She spent all the money, but not on me.”
He says he had a job and house in the UK: “She ruined everything."
Claire ditched her British passport for Irish citizenship to secure her beau a spousal visa and move him into her home in the Black Country.
Two years ago she sold up and moved to his country, where she renovated Franklin’s family home, only for him to go missing.
Claire says: “He told me he was moving to Punta Cana to build a hotel as part of his civil engineering course, but he actually went back to England.”
Claire was evicted by his family after reporting him to immigration and now desperately wants to come back to Dudley.
She claims her husband is “living illegally in the UK” and has voiced her heartbreak at not being able to afford a flight.
On their meeting in 2013, she says: “He was good looking and had the body of a god. Soon we were Skyping daily. I’d just come out of a terrible divorce so it felt exciting.”
Claire applied for Franklin to visit her in Dudley after just six months.
But she says the application was rejected triggering her to book a flight to the Caribbean.
There for a month, Claire says she started spending money on his family home. Once she returned to the UK, the couple decided to marry.
She admits: “My daughters said, ‘don’t do it’.”
But they married in the Dominican Republic in October 2013.
The mum applied for an Irish passport, the country of her father’s birth, after having her bids to get him over to Dudley repeatedly blocked.
She says: “I was advised UK law would override EU law so I decided to give up my British citizenship so I was solely Irish – or an EU citizen living in the UK. He was granted a UK visa as spouse of an EU worker.”
She moved him into her home with her adult daughters, and opened a “joint account” in the Dominican Republic in June 2014.
In December 2018, she discovered he was living in England with another woman.
She has now found a “very low-paid” job in Santo Domingo and is staying with a new boyfriend, but is desperate to get home.
She says: “I spent all my money on Franklin and can’t afford the flight. I should never have sacrificed a thing for him.”
