According to reports, a French woman was defrauded of tens of thousands of dollars after being tricked into thinking she was having an affair with Brad Pitt.
According to BFM TV, a con artist allegedly succeeded in tricking a 53-year-old interior designer named Anne into paying 830,000 euros ($850,0000) by pretending it was for the Hollywood movie star’s “cancer treatment.”
The fraud was first discovered in February 2023. When Anne shared pictures of her holiday on Instagram while on a ski trip, she claimed to have received a message from someone posing as Pitt’s mother.
She received another message the following day from an account posing as Pitt.
As she told the French media outlet TF1 that the account’s creator “knew how to talk to women,” Anne was “flabbergasted” by the interaction and reportedly pushed worries that it might have been a fake to the back of her mind.
Artificial intelligence (AI)-generated photos and videos of the actor tricked Anne into believing it was him, even though he avoided phone and video contacts.
The poems and statements led to a connection between the two, a marriage proposal, and the promise of expensive presents from brands like Chanel or Hermès.
The trap was created when Anne paid 9,000 euros and received nothing in return since she had to pay customs fees to get them.
Anne, who was married to a millionaire about 20 years her senior at the time, decided to file for divorce and told her new “friend” everything, even the sizeable divorce payment she had been awarded.
The scammer then claimed that his personal bank accounts were barred because of their protracted divorce from Angelia Jolie and asked for assistance in paying medical bills for a suspected kidney cancer.
Artificial intelligence-generated images of Pitt seemingly resting in a medical bed were sent to Anne in an attempt to persuade her.
In one picture, the actor’s visage seems to be Photoshopped into a hospital scene while carrying a message that says, “Anne, I love you.”
Only in the summer of 2024, after reading about Pitt’s new girlfriend, Ines de Ramon, in the news, did Anne come to the terrible conclusion that the account was not belonging to Pitt.
By this time, she had reported the incident to the police and left with nearly a million euros from the scammer.
It’s unknown if Anne has been able to recoup some of the money, and she is currently in the hospital due to acute sadness, according to BFM TV.
Since then, the story has moved many Twitter users, who have expressed their sympathies to the victim.
One woman wrote: “Romance scams are the cruellest.”
“It’s funny until you realize, more often than not it’s a vulnerable person that just wanted to be loved.”
Another chimed: “They are so mean and it’s awful that people make fun of the people who fall for them. Exploiting someone’s desire to be loved is obscene.”
Data on romance fraud shows that victims are more likely to be depressed, lonely, widowed, recently bereaved, or have just broken up, according to UK police.
The technique is one of the “fastest growing crimes affecting the vulnerable,” according to Surrey Police, and victims may suffer such severe financial losses that they become delusional and are therefore less likely to self-report.
