Ruin, divorce and mockery on social networks. Anne, a 53-year-old Frenchwoman, agreed to speak to “Sept à Huit” on Sunday about the incredible scam which saw her offer 830,000 euros to a scammer posing as Brad Pitt on the Internet.
It all starts in February 2023. Having just registered on Instagram, Anne is on vacation with her family when a lady claiming to be Brad Pitt’s mother contacts her on the social network. “It’s a woman like you that my son needs,” she tells him. At first incredulous, she falls into the trap when a profile in the name of the famous actor follows suit the next day: “Hello Anne, my mother has spoken to me a lot about you. I would like to know more.”
Although well aware of scams of this type, the mother will inexplicably play the game, mentally weakened by a tasteless relationship with her husband, a millionaire almost 20 years her senior: “At first, I tell myself that it’s is fake, but I don’t really understand what’s happening to me. Afterwards, we will contact each other every day and we become friends (…) I had someone in front of me who was interested in me and my work. I loved the man I was talking to. He knew how to talk to women.
Under the spell and soon in love, the fifty-year-old is out of luck. The scammer has a perfect mastery of AI and the storytelling specific to manipulators. To convince her, he sends her photos that cannot be found on the Internet, those from his passport – which are in fact photomontages – and even goes so far as to create profiles of people close to the actor. Sending a video made from a deepfake finally convinced her. The rest will be terrible for the Frenchwoman.
After a marriage proposal, the man films himself buying her gifts and persuades her to send him 9,000 euros to pay the customs duties necessary for their reception. She will never see the color of it. But he doesn’t stop there and asks her to advance expenses to save him from kidney cancer, a grotesque setup to back it up. Adrift after the divorce with her husband, she ends up sending most of the 775,000 euros received following the separation.
Reality finally caught up with her when the “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood” actor formalized his relationship with Inès de Ramon. Anne falls from a great height. Without a roof, without furniture, without a husband, she lost more than 830,000 euros, in addition to her illusions, despite her daughter’s warnings. Now living in Reunion, she stayed with a friend and attempted suicide three times. Since filming, Anne has been hospitalized at her request in a specialized center for people with serious depression. An investigation has been opened to get hold of the crook, who will not have wasted his time…
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