Unfortunately OP doesn't have stars and only seems to be on here every few weeks.
Related: today NPR ran a segment on "Romance Scams". Some lady in Texas wired $500k over the course of several months to a scammer in South Africa before some anti-fraud agency finally stopped her.
I'm thinking the old man went to Ukraine and disappeared, the OP went to retrieve him, but unfortunately, the OP did not have a particular set of skills acquired over his career.