♪ [ cheers and applause ] ♪ this is "nightline." >> byron: tonight, love bomb. ♪ she once traveled the world with big acts like stevie nicks singing songs like "blue when a handsome man approached her online -- >> shower me with compliments, call me every day. >> byron: she fell hard. >> reporter: how much money did you end up sending?

>> byron: warning signs she says she missed and how to avoid getting played. you're talking about the crazy chick that was at the party? >> byron: the "euphoria" star, now hollywood favorite, flexing acting skills. >> going toe to toe with connor mcgregor was crazy. >> byron: opening up about "road house." >> patrick swayze as a movie star, so iconic. >> byron: offering advance intel on "the white lotus." >> reporter: can we expect a reprise of your character? the world war ii unit's astoundingission kept secret for 50 years. for an everyday item to become dangerous. tide pods child-guard pack helps keep your laundry pacs in a safe place and your child safer. to close, twist until it clicks. tide pods child-guard packaging. - bye, bye cough. - later chest congestion.

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♪ >> byron: good evening. thank you for joining us. the uptick of online fraud in the last few years is so dramatic, some experts have referred to it as the scam demic. one form of personal attack, so-called romance scams involving a fraudster, exploiting our basic desire to be loved to exact a price, sometimes an enormous one. here's abc's ashan singh. >> this is me and keith thompson and priscilla presley. here's a picture of took of

stevie in her bathroom. >> reporter: liza likens spent decades on the road. a backup singer for linda ronstadt and stevie nicks. ♪ singing with her on the track "blue denim." and not long ago, liza was in love. >> he was very sweet. very complimentary. which is what i was used to. >> reporter: the modern-day romance started with facebook messages from a person who called himself donald. >> he wrote a message that he was getting ready to retire, and he was looking for someone to get married and be his partner. >> reporter: he captured liza's heart with his meditative pose and an oddly familiar face. >> this is my husband, gregory. i'll always love him. i always like men that look like my husband. it was the most horrible thing that's ever happened to me. to lose my husband.

and my husband also apologized to me before he died. he said, "you know, i haven't prepared you for the world." "and i'm sorry, i apologize." >> reporter: for the first time since losing greg, she felt her heart skip. >> donald started calling me his queen. just showered me with compliments. and he would call me every day from germany. >> reporter: what started as a whirlwind fairytale she says became a crippling financial nightmare when donald first started asking for money. >> first he needed it just to buy time on his cell phone. with all the talking we'd been doing on the phone, he'd run out of time. >> reporter: how much money did you end up sending? >> $1,000,023.

>> reporter: liza is far from alone. every year, thousands of americans say they're duped by false promises or fear tactics. >> sometimes it's believing too much in people. sometimes it's believing too little. maybe it's a little bit of arrogance. i sometimes te people who are overly self-confident. "i can't be tricked." their guard is down, and they don't do their homework. >> reporter: in recent years, stories like billy mcfarlane's fire fest. >> billed as a luxury star-studied event, concertgoers stranded with little to eat and tents to sleep. >> reporter: the man now no, ma'am as the tin der swindler, who allegedly posed as son of a diamond mogul and conned a string of women out of millions. >> i hate that i did this, you know? >> reporter: from phishing scams from fraudulent email accounts to phone calls using a relative's name, even voice. and online dating apps using an unsuspecting person's photo. we've all heard the warnings,

but how hard could it be to spot the fake? >> i say just take it with a grain of salt. don't trust everything that you see on the internet. >> things i wish i knew, cybersecurity. >> reporter: online, kaitlin sairian is cybersecurity girl. >> i want to help you understand what a vpn's all about, let's go. >> reporter: she's been bringing expertise straight to gen-z, posting easy to follow instructions on how to secure your most precious information. >> your name, address, phone number, date of birth, are online for everyone to see. here's how you can delete them. >> reporter: she says you need passwords. >> what happens is when your passwords are leaked on the dark web, your email and passwords are tied together. all they have to do is use thissal go mechanism and it basically adds and takes 10,000 different variations of the same base password. what we like to say is use a pass phrase, which is basically seven to eight random words strung together. something that you're going to remember. >> reporter: for nearly 2 1/2

years, liza says donald love bombed her with words of affirmation, promising never to betray her. how about your friends, your support system? are you telling them about donald? >> i told a couple of people. he didn't want me to tell anyone. to anybody that is watching, that is a red flag. when they don't want you to tell anybody, there's something very wrong with that. >> love bombing really infiltrates a person and providm feeling of acceptance, of feeling loved, of feeling so important. and giving somebody something that they've always wanted or needed, and you're willing to anything and everything. >> reporter: at one point donald told liza to send him $250,000 in bail money because he got arrested while transporting a safe he says was filled with $700 million in gold and cash.

>> this is the one that, when he told my they had taken him to prison in spain, and he said this was taken from the prison on a break. and it's him holding a post-it. and one of his nicknames for me was "lou lou." >> you had no doubts about this photo? >> no. i thought it was real. >> how about the stickie? >> the post-it? >> any thoughts about the handwriting? >> at first, no. but later on, when i went back, i went and i found this typeset. >> it's a font? >> it's a font. at first, i didn't realize that. and i said to him, "my gosh, you have such perfect printing." but then later on, when i studied it, i realized that it was a font and that he had photoshopped it on there.

i don't know where -- how he got the post-it in his fingers. maybe they're not his fingers. >> were you in love with this guy? >> yes. yes, i was. i did fall in love with him. i did. >> is $700 million enough to keep you going? >> no, i was in love with him. and at a certain point, i wrote and i told him, when the money kept getting stuck in all these different countries, i said, "i don't care about the money, just come, just you come without the money, it's okay." >> reporter: after four failed attempts to meet donald at the airport, and selling her car and her house, liza had had enough. she enlisted the help of an online investigative company to confirm whether she was being played. >> and they showed me who the real guy was. showed me how the pictures were stolen from his profile and his

website. and i was speechless. i sat right there catatonic. >> reporter: not only had she been fooled, she found out the man in the photos was also a victim. the real guy? rahul bornhost, doesn't deal with gold, he's a life coach. [ speaking german ] >> reporter: his pictures have been falsely used to create fake social profiles like these on facebook. >> there are so many women calling me from everywhere on the planet. if i would be a secretary of law in the u.s., i would go after it saying, i would force you down on the knees, you have to protect those women. >> reporter: when reached for comment about raho's concerns ar

a spokesperson with meta affirmed they were aware of his case, writing in part, "people who impersonate others on facebook and instagram violate our policies, and we remove this content when it's found like in this case. our work in this area is never done." last year alone, meta said the company took down over 2.6 billion fake accounts. >> this happens a lot. it's very easy for people to take your pictures offline. that's what's used in many, many, almost all romantic scams. >> reporter: liza says las vegas police told her they couldn't help her because cryptocurrency cases are outside their jurisdiction and that the fbi didn't respond when she filed for an online report. we reached out to the fbi, but the agency said it can't confirm or deny the existence of an investigation. the las vegas police department has not responded. >> self-compassion is such an important part of being able to

recover from any kind of scheme where a person can give themselves grace and say, you know what? bad things happen to good people. it doesn't mean that they're any less smart. >> byron: our thanks to ashan. to hear more of liza's story and two other shocking accounts of deception, check out "impact by nightline," "how i got played," now streaming on hulu. when we return, one on one with "euphoria" star lukas gage. e rheumatoid arthritis symptoms. with my psoriatic arthritis symptoms. and i was done settling. if you still have symptoms after a tnf blocker like humira or enbrel, rinvoq is different and may help. rinvoq is a once-daily pill that can rapidly relieve joint pain, stiffness, and swelling in ra and psa. relieve fatigue... and stop further joint damage. and in psa, can leave skin clear or almost clear.

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in hits like hbo's "the white lotus" and euphoria." he's starring with jake gyllenhaal in a remake of an '80s cult classic. here ga again is abc's ashan sin singh. >> reporter: lukas, thanks for joining us. >> happy to be here. >> reporter: appreciate you, man. for everyone who's a "white lotus" fan, they announced season three is set in asia. can we expect a reprisal of your character? >> somebody's in your office having a baby. >> what? >> the trainee. >> never say never. but, you know -- i'm still holding on for hope, but that show's so good, whatever mike white does to it, it's going to be genius. i love that he is constantly bringing in a new cast and switching it up all the time. >> reporter: i want to ask about your new movie, "road house." it is awesome. let's take a look at a clip. >> he takes it out. just take a big step back, pop him in the face.

you can do it. ♪ >> hey! ♪ >> what now? >> reporter: dude, you are kicking some serious butt in this movie. >> oh, thank you, thank you. >> reporter: what was it like preparing for that role? >> it was -- it was incredible. i mean, we had two weeks of stunt training with some of the best people. so to have that fight training and actually learn how to fight, then go toe to toe with conner mcgregor in a film, it was crazy. >> reporter: you're acting alongside jake gyllenhaal and con conner or mcgregor. that's a bit of a yin and yang. >> it is a bit of yin and yang. having jake gyllenhaal protect you against conor mcgregor? it was really cool.

>> reporter: what was it like working with jake? did he have advice for you? >> such a nice guy and so thoughtful. kind of like the character in the movie, he's kind of my fight teacher, my mr. miyagi character in real life, giving me advice actor to actor. one day they said something along the lines of, "treat every take like a rehearsal, then you can't make any mistakes." something so simple but changed everything. >> reporter: for people not familiar, it is the remake of a cult classic from 1989. patrick swayze, "road house." >> sorry, we're closed. >> then what are all these people doing here? >> drinking and having a good time. >> well, that's why we're here. >> reporter: what did that movie mean to you? why did you want to take on this role? >> patrick swayze, what a movie star. that movie is so iconic. there was pressure to do it justice. and of course honor that movie, but take a fresh take on it. keep it current and fun.

i think we do that. >> reporter: take me back to the jump. it's been a long road for you, getting to this point, from california originally. what's this journey been like for you, lan? >> it's been surreal, it really has. i'm just so lucky to continue to work on different films and projects with different filmmakers that i look up to. i do have to remind myself, how is this real life? but yeah, i just want to continue to do good work. >> reporter: who were some of your inspirations getting on with your journey? >> jake gyllenhaal was a huge inspiration for me. i can quote "donnie darko" start to finish. >> donnie darko? what the hell kind of name that is? some sort of superhero or something? >> what makes you think i'm not? >> that movie changed my childhood, it's so good. >> reporter: you've been open about this being a year of change and growth, something we can all relate to. what's your advice to people based on the past year? >> i think my advice is, never

stay stack nant. the way that i grow and change and evolve is just to keep moving. just keep constantly going to new places, seeing new people. you know, life is constantly changing. the only thing we can rely on is change. so as best as you can, get comfortable with it, lean in. just keep going. don't stop. >> reporter: is it tough having your personal life out there? >> yeah, it is tough. it's a really hard line of having to navigate where the public life and the personal life intersect. >> lukas! >> how much you're sharing as a public figure. but yeah, it's definitely been hard for me. i struggle with keeping things private. and i prefer it that way. but, you know, sometimes that just doesn't work out like that. >> reporter: you've talked a lot about learning and the growth that you experienced, even on set with "road house." any lessons you learn from billy, your character? >> yeah. he's a really good guy. i think he really had a beautiful boy to man arc in this movie.

we watch him walking to his own space. stand up for himself. he's courageous. i think there was a lot of learning from him and wanting to just own myself, all of me. >> reporter: it's a coming of age-story? >> it is, really is, yeah. >> reporter: lukas, thank you for your time. watch "road house" streaming now on amazon prime video. >> byron: our thanks to ashan. when we come back, a salute to three extraordinary war heroes who brought their artistry to the battlefield. their mission kept secret for decades. if you're living with hiv, imagine being good to go without daily hiv pills. good to go binge-watch. good to go out even later. with cabenuva, there's no pausing for daily hiv pills. for adults who are undetectable, cabenuva is the only complete, long-acting hiv treatment

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♪

>> byron: finally tonight, a long-kept secret story of creativity and innovation from the battlefields of world war ii. here's david muir. >> david: tonight, the new honor for a mission so secret, many who knew about it, who were part of it, took it to the grave. world war ii, 1,300 u.s. soldiers part of the so-called ghost army. top-secret military units deployed to fool the nazis. using inflatable rubber trucks, inflatable tanks and artillery, even inflatable soldiers meant to look real from the air and from a distance. even blaring sound effects of tanks heard miles away. the strategy deceiving enemy forces. freeing up real units to strike unexpectedly. saving an estimated 15,000 to 30,000 lives, helping to defeat the nazis. the mission remained top secret for 50 years, declassified in 1996.

and tonight, nearly 80 years later, the ghost army now recognized with the congressional gold medal. three of those veterans were right there today. private seymour nussenbaum, then and now. private john christman, then and today. and private bernie bluestein, then and now. today, honoring his fellow soldiers. >> took a lot of hard work with a lot of hardworking people, and very proud and happy to be here to receive this honor. thank you. >> byron: just wow. thank you, gentlemen. and thank you, david. that's "nightline" for this inc. catch full episodes on hulu. we'll see you right back here same time tomorrow. thanks for the company, america. good night.