“The victim is aware that something is wrong but his judgment is impaired” – Libération

She believed she was having a romantic relationship with Brad Pitt, and here she was who was manipulated and extorted out of 830,000 euros. Interviewed on the show Seven to Eight on TF1 on Sunday June 12, this French woman in her fifties, named Anne, thought of exchanging messages for a year and a half with the Hollywood star, reinforced in this false romance by selfies and falsified documents. She is now hospitalized for depression and has attempted suicide three times. And is the victim of a cyberharassment campaign which led this Tuesday, January 14, TF1 to remove the show from all its rebroadcast platforms.

This story is one example among many others of these online “sentimental scams”, carried out with very sophisticated manipulation techniques, adapted to the profile of the person they target. Psychologist specializing in cybercrime, Nathalie Granier returns to Libé on the levers and consequences of this phenomenon, facilitated by the improvement of artificial intelligence. Above all, she