He was in love and believed he was engaged to a woman he never met, who managed to steal 700 thousand euros from him in 15 years.

It is the incredible story that involves Roberto Cazzaniga, former Italian volleyball team now 42 years old and captain of Gioia Del Colle.

The sportsman was convinced that he was with a certain Maya, an alleged Brazilian model who had been introduced to him by telephone by a mutual friend, Manuela, who would be the author of the sensational scam with her boyfriend and a Sardinian woman.

A crazy scam told by the show "Le Iene". The self-styled model Maya used as a photo that of Alessandra Ambrosio, she was a supermodel once a testimonial of Victoria's Secret.

Cazzaniga plunged his heart into this long-distance relationship, which went on for 15 years without the two meeting live. He often spoke to us on the phone: not with Maya, but with Valeria, a Sardinian woman who also received the bank transfers that the sportsman was periodically convinced to pay to his beloved to pay for her treatment for non-existent health problems. Important sums, given that over the years Cazzaniga has paid out the beauty of 700 thousand euros. The sportsman has come to ask for loans in order to help his virtual girlfriend.

Cazzaniga now, having discovered the truth, has reported everything to the Guardia di Finanza and had to accept the painful reality: his Maya never existed.

Level volleyball player, in the blue jersey Cazzaniga won gold at the 2009 Mediterranean Games and always played between Superlega and Serie A2, before going down - after the age of 40 - to B with Gioia del Colle.

(Unioneonline / L)