Tracy got sent a video of police arresting a prolific conman. It was her boyfriend 'Max.'

It was a regular Tuesday evening in July 2017, and Tracy Hall was worried.

She hadn't heard from her boyfriend of 18-months, Max, since that morning, despite multiple calls and texts.

It was unlike him, and all the worst-case scenarios were running through her head. Was he hurt? Did he get bitten by a shark off Bondi during his morning surf? Did he get hit by a car?

When he hadn't surfaced by the next morning, she called Bondi police and asked them to do a welfare check.

As she frantically called his friends, an incoming call from her friend Cath stopped her in her tracks.

"Trace," she said.

"I'm going to send you a link to a news article, and then I want you to call me back straight away." 

Though his face was blurred in the video, Tracy recognised him immediately. Image: NSW Police.

Clicking on the link, Tracy watched as her boyfriend was handcuffed outside his apartment and led away by detectives.

Except the name being used to describe the arrested man wasn't Max. It was Hamish McLaren, and as she was about to find out, she was his final victim.

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Tracy met Max on a dating app.

It'd been a year since she'd separated from her husband, and she and her six-year-old daughter were finally settled into their new life in Freshwater on Sydney's northern beaches.

She was 40, had a big job at eBay, and was feeling pretty stretched. She was lonely. She craved a companion, and Max's profile looked promising, brimming with photos of him surfing, running and leading the kind of active lifestyle she too enjoyed.

Listen: Tracy Hall on being Hamish McLaren's 'final victim.' Post continues below.

Their first date was a meal at a fancy restaurant in the city after work, and Max told her all about his extensive career in finance that'd seen him working in London and New York, assisting NASA shuttle launches and advising the United States Treasury.

Currently, he was the chief investment officer for a family office that managed the wealth of multiple rich clients.

He had a tragic backstory; he'd been orphaned at age six when his parents died in a plane crash and had spent much of his childhood being shuffled around in the foster system.

"I did Google some of the things that he told me, and nothing came up. I thought, maybe I've got the spelling of his surname wrong or the date off or whatever," Tracy told Mamamia's True Crime Conversations.

She didn't think too much into it because, why would she? He hadn't given her any reason to question him.

Tracy had a lot of fun with Max. He was an incredible communicator and a great listener, but he had a lot of strange stories.

"I guess you could call them fantastical," she explained.

Things like his close shave with the 9/11 terror attack or the fact he'd been stabbed in a New York subway during a burglary.

"He weaponised empathy," Tracy told True Crime Conversations.

"People like him will choose someone like me who is a compassionate, empathetic person because when someone tells you that story, of course your heart goes out to them.

"He knew in those early days that my father had passed away young…that he would gain an extra level of empathy from me because I had lost my father."

Watch: The moment Tracy learnt the truth. Post continues below.

He also loved to flaunt his wealth; constantly pointing out (very fancy) places he'd lived when they were out-and-about in Sydney, and talking about his five cars.

"There were a lot of conversations I would overhear, multiple conversations of him talking to people in his back office about the price of stocks, the price of gold. What was that yesterday? What's it going to close out at today? So it sort of built a picture over time."

The first $10k: "He had all the answers."

About five months into their relationship, around the time of the US election in 2016, Max came to Tracy with an offer.

He told her the markets were about to become very favourable, and he'd not only invested large amounts of cash on behalf of his clients — but for his sister and brother-in-law too.

Did she want in?

"I want you to be financially independent. I can see how hard you're working…I don't mix business with pleasure, but this is an opportunity. I just thought I'd run it past you and see what you think," she remembers him saying.

After getting his assurances that what he was doing wasn't insider trading (he told her he'd checked with his barrister), Tracy handed over $10k.

"As soon as some time had passed, he said, 'I've got good news. You doubled your money.' And I was like, wow okay."

A few months later, Max floated another opportunity by Tracy.

"Do you know what you're paying in fees on your superannuation account?" he asked.

"I said, 'I've got no idea'. And he goes, 'you should look into that, because they're thieves. They're absolute thieves. The money that I make for my family office clients is extraordinary compared to what those super funds are doing.'

"That was the first conversation, and then it just went from there and again every couple of weeks it might come up, or every now and again in a conversation," he told True Crime Conversations.

Eventually, Max convinced Tracy to transfer her super into a self-managed fund for "greater returns," which he would help her set up and manage.

She made out a check for $187,000 — all the super she'd amassed from her 22-year career, and made it out to Bell Potter Securities, the trading account Max had steered her towards.

Max kept giving her updates about how well her new account was doing, and so in time, she made a few more significant transactions.

All up, Tracy transferred $317,000 across four transactions in 2016 and 2017.

The real Max: the crimes of Hamish McLaren.

As Tracy soon found out after his dramatic arrest in mid-2017, Hamish McLaren — her Max — was a conman who detectives had been tracking for some time.

Australian police charged him for defrauding 15 victims of a combined $7.66 million, which he was eventually sentenced to 16 years in prison for.

But as Tracy told True Crime Conversations, it's believed he actually stole closer to $100 million across three decades and multiple victims in not just Australia, but the US, UK, Canada and Hong Kong.

He stole from business owners, retirees, a famous designer, a friend he made while competing as a triathlete — there was no pattern, and no shame in who he was willing to con.

"At the beginning, [I was in] shock, disbelief, denial…which I think is very natural, because I was so confused," said Tracy.

But money aside, the hardest part for Tracy was the emotional toll.

Tracy had been in a relationship with 'Max' for 18 months, and had taken it slow. She'd taken the time to trust him and fall in love with him, an then everything fell apart. Image: Supplied.

"It took me nearly 18 months to fall in love with this man. We built the relationship slowly and literally within 24 hours, I had to come to terms with the fact that I didn't love this man. In fact, this man never actually existed…he was a fake person.

"There was a part of me that really missed him, because I was talking to this guy 10 times a day. We were building our future together," she said.

Pretty soon it became apparent that Tracy was not going to see that money again. It wasn't a priority while the police investigation was still active, and even after, she discovered there wasn't much they could do.

"It is mine [the responsibility to chase the money]. Because it's my money that I lost. And you know, as a group of victims, we could potentially pay somebody to do it. But when you've lost your life savings, and you're trying to rebuild your life, you don't have money to pay a private investigator, and you can't be throwing good money after bad," Tracy explained.

"Offshore money is very hard to trace. It is a long bow…and at that point in time, I didn't have the resources, I didn't have the mental capacity, I didn't have the mental health," she added.

Letting go of Hamish.

His arrest wasn't the last Tracy heard from him.

Bizarrely, Hamish sent her several unhinged letters from prison that failed to acknowledge both the lies he told her (about nearly everything), or the money he stole.

"Lots of musings about how hard things were for him and how much he just wanted a picture of us just to remind him of all the good times, and then he'd list out all the good times and how we were building our life together and this chapter was just a bump in the road," she told True Crime Conversations.

Tracy was in shock. What did he mean? Was he delusional?

She toyed with the idea of visiting him (as he had requested), because she was "clutching at straws trying to get any information I could".

She'd already peppered him with questions; What is your name? Are you parents alive? Where did you go to school? Was this true? Was that true? Where is my money?

"I remember him responding with 'don't get hung up on a name….it's just a name. You know who I am.' He was so dismissive, [and had] no compassion or empathy for what I was going through," she said.

Ultimately, she decided against a visit. But then a bunch of flowers arrived at her work.

"See you soon, Love Hamish," the card read.

"I literally threw up in the office bathrooms. I thought he was downstairs waiting for me…that he'd had gotten bail, or he was out. How does a criminal send flowers from jail?

"It was at that point that I contacted detectives, because I was just a mess. This was six months after his arrest — it all stopped [the correspondence] after that."

On appeal, Hamish's sentence was reduced to 12 years with a non-parole period of nine, which means he'll be eligible to apply for release in July next year.

"Sometimes I do think about it," admitted Tracy.

"But most of the time I try not to. I can't control it, I can't worry about it….I'd like to think there's been some level of rehabilitation, but I'm doubtful."

It took several months for Tracy to emerge from a feeling of numb grief in the aftermath of everything. For three months straight she cried every morning and night, turning to alcohol to forget.

Time and connecting with other victims has been a huge key to her healing, and now she is passionate about making sure no one else gets swindled like she did.

Tracy had written a book about her experience, and rebuilt her savings slowly with the help of a financial advisor. Image: Instagram @tracyleehall.

"Don't go into the world cynical, [but] I would say trust but verify," she told True Crime Conversations.

Something she thinks is even more important to remember when using dating apps, which often sees you connecting with strangers with no mutual friends.

"There are things that I dismissed that I should have looked more boldly at [like] the fact he didn't have a digital footprint," she said.

"I would say meet family and friends quickly, and do a reverse image search," she added.

"Yes, it feels weird, because you want to go into it with an open heart and an open mind, especially if you have a connection. But I think it's just one of those things we have to do now, unfortunately. They are the things that I would say, be really, really careful of."

As part of her advocacy work, Tracy has partnered with Tinder and cyberpsychologist professor Monica Whitty to create a romance scam awareness guide.

They outlined potential red flags to be aware of:

• If they quickly ask you to leave the dating platform to communicate directly.

• If it seems too good to be true.

• If they avoid meeting up IRL and refuse to introduce you to family and friends.

• If they ask for personal information.

• If they emphasise financial obstacles or challenges.

• If they don't have a digital footprint.

Feature image: Supplied.