she loses 830,000 euros because of a fake Brad Pitt

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– A 53-year-old French woman is scammed out of nearly a million euros by a fake Brad Pitt.

The scam is as incredible as it is frightening. A few days ago, Johnny Depp warned on social networks about a scam targeting him. Like Florent Pagny or Alain Delon, the American actor announced that he was the victim of scammers who use artificial intelligence to “reproduce one’s voice and face”. This is what happened to a 53 year old French womantells TF1. In Seven to EightSunday January 12, Anne explains how she was fooled by a fake Brad Pitt on social networks. It all starts in February 2023. On vacation with her daughter and her husband, she registers for the first time on social networks. She wants to post vacation photos.

Very quickly, she was contacted by a woman introducing herself as Brad Pitt’s mother, Jane Etta Pitt. If at first she believes it to be a scam, she finds herself in a delicate situation with her husband, a millionaire older than her. And the woman contacts her again several times before the so-called Brad Pitt doesn’t send her a message in turn : “At first, I told myself that it was fake, but I didn’t really understand what was happening to me. Afterwards, we will contact each other every day and we become friends”she tells TF1.

Duped by a deepfake

The exchanges between the fifty-year-old and the crook intensify to such an extent that they become intimate. Under the spell of her interlocutor’s speech, she is also reassured by the identity documents sent by the fake Brad Pitt, as well as those of his film double, Rob O’Malley. Then her associate contacted her and even the daughter of the couple that the actor formed with Angelina Jolie, Shiloh. Anne gets impatient about never meeting him, but then the scammer will send her a video of him. It is actually aboutun deepfakegenerated using artificial intelligence. It is from this moment that the feelings scam will take another turn and will provide money to the scammer. In a video where he claims to have bought her luxury items (Hermès, Louis Vuitton, Chanel), he asks her to pay customs fees.

Reason: his accounts are blocked because of his lawsuit with Angelina Jolie. “I, like an idiot, paid the 5,000 euros. Every time I had doubts, he managed to remove my doubts”admits Anne to TF1. She then divorced her husband and will receive 775,000 euroswhat she will confide to her interlocutor. It is from this moment that the scam will crescendo. In fact, the fake Brad Pitt assures him that he is sick and he must be hospitalized. However, medical costs are very expensive. However, as his accounts are blocked…

Three suicide attempts

The medical bills will come one after the other until they reach staggering sums. Even though Anne managed to block it 40 times, each time, she plunged again, despite her daughter’s warnings. Finally, she will understand that she has been scammed when the real Brad Pitt formalizes his relationship with his new partner, Ines de Ramon, in June 2024. The contact of a fake FBI agent will end up convincing her . In total, she will have lost more than 830,000 euros. Today, destitute, she has filed a complaint and has already attempted suicide three times. Hosted with a friend, she was even hospitalized in a specialized clinic in severe depression, indicates TF1.