Convicted romance scammer appears to start new online dating profile — from behind bars

W5's Jon Woodward speaks to a woman who dated Jon Mulder about how the convicted romance scammer appears to have started a new dating profile from prison.

This is part two of a three-part investigative series by CTV W5 into a how one man deceived many women he was dating, taking over $160,000.

When Jon Mulder was put behind bars for his role in deceiving and defrauding more than a dozen women he was dating, his victims thought they wouldn’t hear from them again.

Instead, they were shocked to find evidence that the 39-year-old romance scammer was up to his old tricks in yet another online dating profile – and have many questions about how someone could do that from jail.

“It was definitely a sigh of relief to know that he was behind bars. It was short-lived for sure,” said Annge Madill, who dated a man she would eventually learn was Mulder after he sold her motorcycle and kept most of the money. Madill found herself out $25,000.

When she saw that dating profile late last year, she said it was like “déjà vu.”

The post appeared on the dating website Plenty of Fish, under the handle “JonnyXFiles”. It shows several pictures of Mulder, including him smiling next to motorcycles and wearing sunglasses driving a truck.

“I’m at the point in my life where I’m putting all my cards on the table,” he wrote in the profile.

“I am currently serving an eight-year sentence for several counts of fraud. I’m at the point in my life where I am wanting to find someone I can be myself with, someone that can understand that I have a past and have done things that I’m not proud of but can learn from.

“I am a complete open book and will discuss or face my past head on,” he wrote.

Madill said she’s extremely concerned that Mulder somehow got online from jail.

“Just knowing he was online, that became like a trigger for my safety, you know, because where does it stop? Does it stop at Plenty of Fish?” she said.

When CTV News approached Plenty of Fish to ask how the profile was made, the site responded by saying the profile had been taken down and banned.

“We don’t take these things lightly, and we’ve taken necessary action,” a spokesperson said.

Mulder himself denied that it was his work, answering in court a question that had been posed to his lawyer by W5.

“I can say I’ve had zero access to the internet of any sort. I have no way of accessing any accounts under my name. I understand people are upset. I’m trying to move forward as they’re moving forward,” he said during the hearing that accepted his guilty plea.

• Part one: ’I’ve been at this game a long time’: Romance scammer admits to years of lies and deception

His lawyer, Michelle Farquhar, said afterwards Mulder denies any association with that account.

“Given the level of media attention and the number of people who have access to those, and other photos of my client as well as information on his court proceeding and time in custody there are numerous possibilities of other people who could have created that profile. Mr. Mulder is disappointed and appalled that someone would do that using his image.”

“Inmates do not have internet access while in custody,” Ontario’s Ministry of the Solicitor General, which runs Central East Correctional Centre, the facility Mulder was housed at the time, told CTV News.

Officially, that’s true in most prisons across the country, with some exceptions.

But it turns out that many prisoners do actually get access to the internet, through smuggled cell phones.

Prisoners like rapper Hassan Ali, known by his stage name of Top5, who was awaiting trial on a murder charge while he shot a music video. The charges were stayed, and Ali thanked Ontario correctional officers (COs) for smuggling him in a phone for $10,000.

“I had a knife in jail. I had a cheeseburger in jail. I had a phone in jail,” Ali said in a livestream. “Shoutout to the COs who took care of me and gave me the phones.”

The Ontario government did investigate the incident, saying without specifics “the investigation has concluded, and all appropriate action has been taken.”

• Watch the latest W5 investigations

Ali has since been re-arrested on weapons charges. In Ontario, between two and four cellphones were seized each year between 2019 and 2023.

After Ali’s claim in 2024, the number of seized cellphones shot up that year to 11.

But all of those efforts may not be getting at the full problem, according to another Ontario inmate, who asked for anonymity to discuss what he was seeing on the ranges.

“They are very common. They’re on every unit. They go for between $3,000 and $5,000,” the inmate said.

Other provinces said they seize a handful of phones each year as well, or said the problem is so small they do not track it. But the problem may be much larger in the federal system.

Correctional Service Canada (CSC) told CTV News that in 2023, there were 2,284 seizures involving phones or related items. That number rose to 2,784 in 2024.

That’s about seven cellphones or related items seized every day.

Ivan Zinger, Canada’s correctional investigator, says sometimes the phones are used for reaching out to family, but most of the time it’s to further criminal activity.

“They can be brought in with drones. They can be brought in with body cavities. The prison population is quite innovative,” he said in an interview.

“There is a lot of drug trade. It’s flourishing in our penitentiaries. And cell phones are primarily used for that purpose, to continue the drug trafficking that’s going on.”

CSC says it’s aiming to stop the phones from entering the prisons, including by drone detection technology, phone detection technology, body scanners, and partnering with other investigating agencies.

“CSC has developed a multi-pronged approach to mitigate the risks of contraband which includes intelligence investigations, searches of offenders, visitors, buildings, and cells, including the thorough use of search tools such as ion scanners and detector dogs,” said a spokesperson.

The smuggled phone involving rapper Top5 prompted an investigation – but so far Ontario’s government hasn’t confirmed there’s one in the Mulder case.

Madill believes that Mulder’s profile on Plenty of Fish should trigger an investigation too.

For tips on romance scams, or any other story, please email Jon Woodward