ON his profile on a dating website, John Arthur Edwards seems like a good catch.

He's known on the website as "archangel355", a non-smoking and light-drinking Catholic.

He also promotes himself as a university-educated construction worker who rakes in a six-figure salary and says he is "lookin" for a woman aged between 18 and 35.

And he's a Gemini which, in astrology, is supposed to symbolise "two men".

Ironic for someone who for 20 years has mastered the crime of charming and scamming people at the same time.

The dating site and his gift for spinning convincing tales are among the tools Edwards has used to lure his victims.

Using the alias Casey Matthews, he recently talked his way into a Cairns woman's life.

It is unknown how they met, but the relationship blossomed to the point he proposed to her and signed a contract to buy a $700,000 house at Trinity Beach.

It ended when he cleaned out her savings accounts and fled in her parents' car, leaving a victim shocked and broken-hearted as he had done so many times around Australia.

Edwards remains on the run, having racked up a host of unpaid bills in Cairns.

The Weekend Post has learned that he has used his charms to scam at least two other women in the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

Smithfield CIB Det Sen-Constable Brendon Skerke, who is one of several police officers on the fraudster's trail, said Edwards was facing up to 50 charges from his time in the Far North alone.

"He defrauds anyone for anything, to be honest," he said.

And he's apparently fearless in the way he does it.

Sen-Constable Skerke said Edwards did not try to disguise himself and even flashed his real driver's licence when scamming people.

"In most instances he uses his true name," he said.

Det Sen-Constable Skerke almost caught Edwards two months ago.

Queensland Transport officers intercepted him as he drove a stolen white Toyota Hilux at Trinity Beach.

As they checked his licence, he sped off before dumping the four-wheel-drive in a back street and running into bushland.

It was then a police check revealed who he was and his criminal tendencies, which have included carrying rifles.

A cordon was set up and armed police hunted him, but he had already escaped.

Edwards heard his name and history being broadcast across a police scanner he carried and called police to declare he was unarmed and not to shoot him.

Det Sen-Constable Skerke spoke to him, demanding he surrender or at least hand in the vehicle's keys to police.

Edwards obliged, but drove to the Innisfail station and claimed he had found the keys in the street.

Police continued searching for him, but his new-found Cairns acquaintances knew him only as Casey Matthews, so he virtually continued operating under their noses.

Det Sen-Constable Skerke said Edwards was raised in the country and typically lurked in smaller remote towns where people were more trusting.

He is wanted in Queensland, WA, NT, New South Wales and South Australia.

In January, he is believed to have ripped off a lover and stolen her 4WD before heading interstate.

Edwards first came to the attention of police in 1986 when he defrauded people in NT.

In 1995, he was on Queensland’s top-10 most wanted list after police learned he was driving cross-country during a car-stealing and fraud spree amounting to tens of thousands of dollars.

He has posed as a construction worker and a doctor and worked as a mine rescue paramedic and truck mechanic.

In 2001, police arrested Edwards near Eucla, a small town in southern WA, following a car chase spanning more than five hours.

He escaped from WA's Karnet Prison in 2004.

While on the run, he fed false information to Crime Stoppers to throw detectives off his trail.

But he was arrested at Perth airport about five months later after catching a flight from Melbourne and was sent back to jail.

Since his release, he has racked up a long list of charges in most states.

Forensic psychologist and Bond University criminologist Prof Paul Wilson said fraudsters often acted with little or no remorse.

"People who commit what I call predatory fraud - that is, preying on the emotions of a person - often have a history of similar predatory relationships and can cause great emotional harm and financial and physical harm to the victims," he said.

"They have absolutely no feeling or empathy for what they have done to their victims and will be quite ruthless and uncaring about how they achieve their financial frauds."

Edwards is believed to be driving a white and silver 1997 Kia Sportage 4WD with registration 216-JPA.

He is Caucasian, 180cm tall, about 100kg and has short red hair, an arm band tattoo on his right arm and a tribal tattoo on his back.

Anyone with information on Edwards' whereabouts should phone Smithfield police on 4057 1900 or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

Share this article