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“It’s crazy, isn’t it?” : the insane story of Anne, scammed out of 830,000 euros by believing she was having an affair with Brad Pitt

Love scams are increasing on social networks: more than 1,200 cases have been recorded in in 2023.

The one suffered by Anne, a 53-year-old interior designer, is worthy of a Hollywood script.

A crook took 830,000 euros from him by making him believe that the American actor Brad Pitt had fallen under his spell.

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Seven to eight

“I want you baby, I love you so much, I adore you. Hello my darling, my wife…”. Sweet words, selfie photos… Anne, 53, believed she was having a romantic affair on social networks with Brad Pitt. “He sent me photos and when I did research, I didn’t see those photos. So, I said to myself: ‘these are photos that he took himself for me’. It’s crazy, isn’t it?” she says in the Sept à Huit report above. This fake Brad Pitt scammed her via the internet for a year and a half, extracting a total of 830,000 euros from her. This is the largest amount ever stolen in this type of business.

I loved the man I was conversing with. He knew how to talk to women.

Anne

However, this mother, an interior decorator with an uneventful life, never thought she would fall into such a scam. A love scam involving a host of real-false characters, partly modeled by the magic of artificial intelligence. While victims rarely testify, Anne agreed to tell her story. It all starts in February 2023. Anne is in Tignes with her husband and daughter. For the first time in her life, she registered on Instagram to post her vacation photos. She is then contacted by a woman, who claims to be Jane Etta Pitt. “Very quickly, she said to me in conversation: ‘it’s a woman like you that my son needs’. I answer him: “What are you talking about, you’re completely delusional”, she recalls. Without realizing it, she has actually just been phished. “The next day, back from skiing, I received a new message: ‘Hello Anne, my mother told me a lot about you. I would like to know more (…) In fact, we’re talking about Brad Pitt, I’m amazed. At first, I tell myself that it’s fake, but I don’t really understand what’s happening to me. Afterwards, we will contact each other every day and we become friends.” she continues. Well, that’s what she thinks.

The fake Brad Pitt asks a lot of questions and Anne opens up. Then, as the weeks go by, the exchanges become more intimate. These messages come at the right time: Anne is going through a difficult period in love. She is married to a millionaire entrepreneur, 19 years her senior, but their relationship has been on the rocks for two years. A loophole that the scammer will exploit. “I had someone in front of me who was interested in me and my work because my own husband wasn’t even interested in my work (…) It’s as if I lived alone”she says. The young woman then receives excessive love poems and songs which she has translated by an application. “There are so few men who write you this kind of thing. I liked the man I spoke with. He knew how to talk to women, it was always very well spoken”, she admits. Anne is as if bewitched, especially as the so-called American actor sends her proof that it is really him: his passport, that of Rob O’Malley, his understudy in the cinema and his handyman. This is act 2 of the plot.

Medical expenses for alleged kidney cancer

The impostor brings other characters into the picture, such as Jeremy Kleiner, the actor’s associate. And even Shiloh, the daughter of the couple that Brad Pitt formed with Angelina Jolie, who writes to him to check on him. All these exchanges are only done by email or on social networks. Anne has doubts. But her lover always finds an excuse not to take her on the phone: endless meetings or overflowing shoots, he also tells her that he is going to come see her in France and to reassure her, he sends her a video message. It is in fact a deep fake, a video montage based on artificial intelligence where you can make anyone say anything. But Anne has taken the bait, the financial scam will begin. It starts with a big statement: “Will you marry me?”he asks her. Anne recognizes it today, at the time, she was ready to say yes.

Immediately, she receives a new message where the fake Brad Pitt tells her that he has “races” for her and sends her videos “from Vuitton, from Hermès, from Chanel”. “Crazy stuff”she remembers. But to receive them, Anne must pay customs duties, or $5,180. “I immediately wrote to the so-called Brad Pitt telling him that I do not agree and there he tells me that his accounts are blocked because of the lawsuit he has against Angelina Jolie, who “He has millions of dollars, but he can’t touch it. Otherwise he would have paid the taxes.”he assure-t-il. “So, I, like an idiot, paid the 5,000 euros. Every time I had doubts, he managed to remove my doubts,” she adds. Anne will pay a total of 9,000 euros for her “sumptuous” gifts, the color of which she will never see, supposedly withheld due to an overload problem.

At the same time, her husband decided to divorce her. Anne receives a tidy compensatory benefit of 775,000 euros and opens up to the fake Brad Pitt. Everything will end up in the pockets of the crooks. The majority of the sum will go to treat the actor’s alleged kidney cancer. Brad, whose accounts are still blocked, asks Anne to advance the medical expenses; he will reimburse her later, he says. “It costs me to do it, but I tell myself that maybe I will save a man’s life”says the young woman. She is asked to pay into an account in Türkiye, Anne does not ask any questions.

It hurt me too much to see that my mother was so naive and that she believed in it wholeheartedly.

Margaux, Anne’s daughter

However, she continued to block Brad Pitt on her phone, forty times in all. But each time, she plunged again. Ultimately, this story had a major impact on those around him. Anne even got angry with her own daughter, Margaux, who never believed this nonsense. For a year, this law student tried to bring her mother to her senses. In vain. “She is overexcited at first, she says to herself that this is all new to her, that she has never experienced this (…) At first, I laughed a little (…) I saw that it was just for the money (…) In fact, she was so caught up in this unreal relationship that our relationship deteriorated. It took up a lot more space, we only talked about it. It hurt me too much to see that my mother was so naive and that she believed in it as hard as iron”she explains.

It is finally by leafing through the celebrity press that Anne will begin to open her eyes. In the fall of 2023, after eight months of scam, the real Brad Pitt appears everywhere with his new conquest. “There, I said to him: ‘you have to be honest with me, if you have a relationship, you have to stop telling me that you love me'”, assures Anne, who ends up losing her temper. But the fake Brad always has the parade and goes so far as to send her a fake news flash, generated by the AI, where he denies any affair. The news reassures her for a while, but the American star ends up making her real affair official. In the summer of 2024, Anne does not. no longer believes at all to this story and files a complaint According to our information, an investigation, entrusted to a specialized brigade of the judicial police, has just been opened.

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Today, Anne is staying with a friend. She no longer has a roof over her head and had to sell all her furniture. He only has 40,000 euros left in savings. This extraordinary story destroyed her. Anne attempted suicide three times. “I wonder why I was chosen to hurt myself like that. I have never hurt anyone in my life. These people deserve hell. These crooks must be found,” she says, sobs in her voice. Anne launched a fundraiser on the internet to finance her legal fees. Since the filming of this report, and at her request, she has been hospitalized in a clinic specializing in serious depression.


Virginie FAUROUX | Report: Nicolas Mondoly, Pierre-François Lemonnier and Mathieu Alonso

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