They seduced women to better rob them. Five people have been arrested in Spain for having extorted 325,000 euros from two “vulnerable” and “depressed” women by pretending online and on WhatsApp to be American actor Brad Pitt, police announced on Monday.
The suspects contacted their alleged victims on a website aimed at fans of the actor and, over time, managed to make them believe “that they had a romantic relationship with him,” the Guardia Civil said in a statement.
Posing as the actor, the gang members then allegedly offered the women to invest in various projects that did not exist. A woman from Andalusia (south) was scammed out of 175,000 euros while another, who lives in the Basque Country (north), lost 150,000 euros.
Profile showing “emotional deficiencies”
“The cybercriminals (…) studied their social networks and drew up their psychological profiles, thus discovering that the two women were (…) vulnerable, presenting emotional deficiencies and a depressive state,” the press release states.
“They also used instant messaging platforms to exchange messages and emails with the two women until they believed they were chatting via WhatsApp with Brad Pitt himself,” the latter promising them “a romantic relationship and a future together,” according to the same source.
Police arrested five suspected members of the gang in Andalusia, including the alleged leaders, and were able to recover 85,000 euros of the total amount swindled.
During the searches, investigators seized several mobile phones, bank cards, two personal computers and a diary “in which were recorded the phrases used by the fraudsters to deceive their victims.”
Brad Pitt, 60, won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in 2020 for Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” In 2014, he also won the prestigious award for producing Steve McQueen’s “12 Years a Slave.”
