this is "nightline." >> tonight, bad catch. the catfishing crisis. a veteran fighting to clear his name. his identity stolen and sold around the world. used in hundreds of fake profiles to lure in dozens of h leaving them heartbroken. plus, hoop dreams. inside the frenzy and rivalry on the court as two of the nba's top superstars face off, shooting for victory with the championship on the line. but first, the "nightline" five.

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what's going on now? wait! go back! good evening. thank you for joining us. it's late at night. do you know where your online identity is? one army vet thought he did until he logged on and freaked out. there are hundreds of them. his fake profile is used by dating app women to click on and get ripped off. >> reporter: he might appear in your inbox as a handsome army medic serving on a peacekeeping mission overseas, and he might

even tell you about life back home on his farm. >> you can make up a lot of good stories with a guy in a uniform, a kid on a horse. >> reporter: but the man in the photos, brian denny, isn't the same person in the keyboard. >> there were double digits in fake accounts that came up. >> reporter: he's the victim of a bizarre case of identity theft. his pictures plastered across dozens of social media platforms. >> facebook, instagram, linked in, tinder, just to name a few. >> reporter: even a chinese site. >> apparently. >> reporter: a retired colonel, he has found himself immersed in the shade eye wory world of onl romance fraud when he found his photo had been stolen and used to lure women all over the globe into thinking they're in a relationship with him.

when did you first become aware your identity had been stolen? >> i got a note on linked in saying i have been talking with someone who says they're you. she met me through social media and this guy had been, she had sent him money for airline tickets. >> reporter: did he come and visit? >> he did not. >> reporter: it didn't take long for brian to realize this was more than just a one-of. >> there's more than 3,000 accounts on facebook alone. >> reporter: more than 3,000. >> that's right. >> reporter: soon the messages were pouring in. >> hi, i'm a doctor from kosovo, and i think i've been scammed. >> i'm sorry to disturb you. >> hello, someone got pictures of you. >> reporter: and two and a half years later they haven't stopped. >> you end up breaking up with someone every week, and i say breaking up with them because they've committed not just emotionally been financially. it really becomes overwhelming to be the bearer of bad news all

the time for folks. >> reporter: the real brian denny is oo husband, father and proud veteran. >> i'd like to say hi to all our friends and family and supporters. >> reporter: someone who has spent a lifetime fighting for others. the fake brian denny, well, he could be anyone. >> i've been everybody from frank smith to scott glen to ricardo. sergeant, colonel, major. i'm a leading humanitarian assistance mission in iraq, afghanistan, i'm in all those places doing all those things. >> reporter: how much money has been taken from these various women in your name? >> there's been a couple hundred thousand. probably my biggest contributors have been from australia where the total for three ladies is pretty close to $200,000 alone. >> reporter: internet crime is a big business, but unlike many criminal enterprises online, the

world of romance scamming doesn't exist on the edges of the darkweb. >> get your photos at low cost. >> reporter: facebook groups like these ones trafficking stolen information out in the open. >> free fake profile so you look legit and european. >> reporter: and on community forums which actually teach people how to create fake profiles. >> instagram account for sale, 950-plus followers. >> reporter: and lure clients, even facilitate money laundering. these posts are really bold. i mean, they put out on sites. >> they don't think they're going to be caught, clearly. but our take on that is yes, you will. >> reporter: amy hess works with the fbi. she says as social media has become more popular, these cases called confidence frauds, have become much more prevalent. >> are they committing any kind of crime by doing this? >> as soon as we can connect

them to actual crime, yes, they are and have been targets of our investigations. >> reporter: is it hard to chase? >> it is sometimes. it's a very complex fraud. there's a criminal network operating. there's multiple people. sometimes they have the victim be part of that either in a witting or unwitting capacity to be part of that network because they're moving money for them. >> reporter: money laundering. this is a billion dollar business? >> i would say with confidence, it's in the billions of dollars. each one of those is a person. each one of those is a victim. those are people's life savings. >> reporter: people like julie ericson. how much did you lose? >>we $400,000 and $500,000. >> reporter: julie was looking for love when she turned to online dating, and it didn't take long for her to develop a relationship with a man who said his name was mark. >> he was a very, very good-looking man. i was attracted to him. >> reporter: mark told julie he was working overseas. the two would e-mail and talk on

the phone for hours at a time. but julie says she was surprised when mark made a request for money. >> $500. >> reporter: soon julie was out of hundreds of thousands of dollars all to a man who was not who he said he was. describe to me the home when you realized -- >> crushing. absolutely crushing. i was suicidal. i cried a lot. >> reporter: have you ever found out who the real mark is? >> no. tried but never have. >> reporter: for brian, the battle against online scammers is deeply personal. >> every day that it continues to go on there's some other person that's going to give their life savings, some other person is going to be heartbroken. >> reporter: this has to be tough on your wife. you're getting messages daily, weekly, from these women who think they have a love affair going. >> this is a tough issue. >> reporter: i can see why you want to put a stop to it.

>> my family wants nothing to do with this. >> reporter: a quick search on instagram or facebook still turns up dozens of active profiles using his name and image. why are members of the military such a popular target? >> we highly value our military personnel, so it's an added level of respect, an added level of reverence that we place on them. the person who is perpetrating this fraud never wants to meet you. so they have to come up with a reason why they can't meet you. for one, they're in the military. they're in some type of business that would keep them constantly traveling. >> reporter: why not just completely disengage. >> right. >> reporter: from being online or ona any type of sites? >> it only makes it easy for the criminals to operate. there will be someone else whose picture is used to do this. >> reporter: so you will not pull away. >> no, will not do it. >> reporter: he has taken the

s foun t highest book where he concentration of fake profiles with kathy waters. the duo met after her friend was scammed by someone using brian's photos. together they started a group advocating against romance scams, submitting a lengthy report to facebook about what they say are major platform flaws. they also lobbied to congress. >> you've met with facebook. >> mm-hm. >> reporter: are you satisfied with what you got from facebook? >> we've had a couple meetings. no changes are going to happen without facebook's cooperation. >> reporter: but people like you are having their identity stolen. other people are losing hundreds of thousands of dollars. >> yeah. >> reporter: there are crimes being committed here. >> right on their platform. and they don't want the responsibility of determining what's a crime and what's normal social communication. >> reporter: in a statement to abc news, facebook said impersonation violates our policies and has no place on facebook. we've developed technology to

specifically combat impersonation and will continue to make improvements. we are thankful to brian and kathy for working on this issue with us. as a result of our investigation, facebook removed those groups we flagged to them, telling us they were in violation of the platform's community standards. for bryan, any action or legislation is too little too late. he just hopes to serve as a cautionary tale to others lured into a false sense of security on social media. his fight is far from over. so if there's a woman watching this interview right now and she thinks she's communicating with you, colonel bryan den eyny, wh do you say? >> she is not, she is not. it's all fake. it's all made up. it's all a lie. >> reporter: for "nightline," kyra phillips in williamsburg, virginia. next, sitting courtside as two nba stars battle it out on the biggest stage in basketball. ?

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the spotlight is on the nba championship as game three tonight ended with the toronto raptors beating the golden state warriors, breaking a tie some of the top players shoot for a title coveted by a dynasty and a first timer to the finals. oakland, game three. the nba finals. the biggest stage in basketball. this guy wears a team jersey and draws a crowd. he's a superstar, but he isn't a player or a raptor. the 67-year-old would say he's

the toronto raptors' biggest fan. he's attended every single raptors home game for 20 years. >> my love for basketball started in toronto in '95 when i first bought two tickets, because i could only afford two tickets at the time. this is the most entertaining game on this earth. >> reporter: but tonight. >> this is our time! >> reporter: he is in enemy territory. as his beloved team battles the golden state warriors. >> for 48 minutes, we are in a competition. other than that, we are brotherhood before the game and after the game. go raptors, go! >> reporter: from one side, a dynasty, fighting to keep its crown. steph curry and the warriors, who are playing in their fifth straight nba final. they've already won three. >> they play fast. they hit threes. they have superstars. >> reporter: on the other side, the new kids on the block, the

toronto raptors and their superstar player, kawhi leonard. >> it is the story of the successful golden state warriors versus the upstart first time we're here toronto raptors. >> somebody that worked for the airport told me it's not just a city behind you, it's the whole country. >> reporter: surprisingly, maybe some in america too. >> anywhere besides california, i think they're rooting for the raptors, believe it or not. i think it's the patriots syndrome. you see that team at the top so long you want to see goliath fall. >> reporter: there's certainly one raptors fan who wants to see the warriors fall. drake. ♪ started from the bottom, now we're here ♪ >> reporter: has been here for his team the raptors during previous games. his courtside antics were in full swing, from giving the coach an impromptu shoulder

massage to appearing to smack talk draymond green. >> it's one thing to be drake. it's another thing to go up touching a guy while he's coaching the game. he has not only injected this sort of celebrity into this whole thing but created a new story line. how much is too much from the celebrity fans. >> reporter: during game one of the nba finals, drake appeared to pick lint from curry's h h my colleague spoke to curry about the stunts. >> as players on the court we don't really mind it. we go back at him sometimes once in a while. >> reporter: the warriors have played in the finals for the past five seasons. five times in a row, a streak like that surpassed only by the boston celtics from 1959 to 1966. the greatest teams in nba

history have been able to do thing that others haven't, th e three-peat. >> reporter: curry is a household name. >> the greatest shooter of all time. he is absolutely sure, when he shoots the ball, that ball is going in. >> the world is his. he's a three-time champion, a two-time league mvp. >> reporter: also known as a family man. >> every year, it's crazy. have you seen the ticket prices for these finals? hm-mm. >> reporter: i've seep your salary, too. >> it's not about how much you make. it's about how much you keep. >> reporter: while steph may be an open book, the raptors' kawhi leonard is the opposite. >> he is an interesting figure. we know almost nothing about him. it's crazy. >> kawhi leonard could work for the cia as easily as he could be a nba player. he has nothing to say. he ain't giving out any information whatsoever. nobody even talks trash to him. and they don't talk trash to

him, you know why? he won't respond. he has nothing to say. >> when i'm on the basketball court, that's where i want to be. i want to take each possession at a time. >> reporter: people are so fascinated by him, searching for any taste of his personality. that a simple clip of him laughing went viral last year. >> reporter: there have been small displays of humor, tongue and cheek ads for a grocery chain in 2014. >> i got your cheeseballs. >> that's all you got? >> reporter: on the court, he is a dominating presence. worthy of his nickname. >> he's called "the claw." that's for his defense and because he has big hands. the guy is unstoppable defensively. >> he can play with his back to the basket. can step away from the basket, hit three-point shots and is an elite defender. >> reporter: a three-time all-star who's already won a championship with the san

antonio spurs. but after seven seasons with the spurs, he was traded to the raptors. >> kawhi leonard is the closest thing to michael jorden in today's game. a guy who can change the fortune of a team by himself. >> what i wanted to do when i got to this team is to make history. >> reporter: for kauai and the raptors, the time is now. in the arena packed with warrior fans, toronto claims a 2-1 lead in the series. it's clear that kawhi leonard's desire fo desire for greatness goes beyond the championship games. >> want to be top 50 on the all-time list. >> reporter: one thing is clear. two of the greatest players on the planet are making this a finals worth watching. game four is friday night, right here on abc. and next, the 97-year-old

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and finally tonight,

parachuting into normandy with the perfect salute. world war ii veteran tom rice is back in normandy to make the same jump he did 75 years ago on d-day. he was a paratrooper with the 101st airborne division, parachuting into nazi-occupied france. he is now 97. that's right, 97. up in the air again today, honoring his fallen band of brothers and touching down in roughly the same area he landed in 1944. >> beautiful jump, beautiful flight. everything was perfect. >> a mission completed in salute to the greatest generation. good for him. it was general george s. patton who said it is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who die. rather we should thank god that such men lived.

there'll be special coverage here as david muir reports from normandy. that's "nightline." thanks for the company, america. goodnight.

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