How a woman falls in love with the wrong Brad Pitt and loses 800,000 euros
Anne thinks she's meeting Brad Pitt online. Soon the news is not just about romance, but also about money. How fraudsters get rich with the perfidious business of love.
A breaking news flashes across the screen. A presenter in a red jacket explains: “Brad Pitt corrects rumors about his relationship. Accordingly, he is not dating actress Ines de Ramon. According to him, he is in an exclusive and loving relationship with a special person who holds a special place in his heart and goes by the name Anne.”
This message is incorrect. Not even the presenter or the TV show are real. They are created with artificial intelligence for one purpose: to make Anne believe that Brad Pitt, Hollywood star and actor, is really dating her. Behind the artificially created Brad Pitt is a group of so-called “love scammers”. This is what the Frenchwoman tells the “TF1” channel.
Brad Pitt wants to get to know Anne
The story of Anne and the fake Brad Pitt begins in February 2023. On a skiing holiday with her daughter and her then husband, a multimillionaire, she logs on to social networks for the first time. She wants to upload vacation photos to Instagram. A short time later she receives a message from a woman claiming to be Brad Pitt's mother. Anne is exactly the kind of partner she wants for her son. Then a man contacts her under the name William Bradley Pitt. He wants to get to know her.
Anne is skeptical, she tells “TF1”. But the alleged Brad Pitt sends her photos of his ID and driver's license. He gains her trust. They would have written every day via a private chat. Anne never gets her new boyfriend on the phone, the fake Pitt always comes up with an excuse: meetings, filming. The normal life of a Hollywood star.
“I share everything with you”
But Anne becomes impatient and accuses him of stalling her. Then the fake Brad Pitt sends her a video. In the television station's contribution it can clearly be seen as artificially generated. He appears ticked off, his facial features move unnaturally. He says, “I’m surprised by your reaction. I share everything with you. I have prepared everything today and will give you my departure time.” He promises to visit her in France. Then he asks her if she wants to marry him. She is ready to say yes.
He sends her more videos in which saleswomen pack supposedly luxury bags for her and hold a diamond ring for her to the camera. The face of the alleged Pitt is never seen in the videos that Anne provided to the French broadcaster. He will never actually visit her. As he writes to her, he sends all the gifts to Anne by post to France. But the package is apparently stuck and Anne is supposed to pay 5,180 euros for customs duties.
Sie schreibt: „Du bist ja lustig, schickst mir ein Paket und ich soll dafür bezahlen?“
Er antwortet: „Tut mir leid, mein Konto ist wegen der gerichtlichen Streitigkeiten mit Angelina Jolie gesperrt.“
Every time she had doubts, he took them, says Anne. In the post she sits on a sofa, her brown shorts and white, high-necked blouse emphasize her fragility.
What is Love Scamming?
With her marriage now in crisis, the Frenchwoman is a perfect victim for so-called “love scamming”. With exuberant affection and feigned love, scammers manage to obtain large sums of money from their victims. They often pose as celebrities like Brad Pitt or as attractive businessmen. They make those affected dependent on themselves and are indispensable in everyday life. According to the police, “love scammers” earn several million euros every year from love fraud in Germany alone.
“Brad Pitt and other celebrities use the so-called fan scam. The fraudsters say that they write via a private account and that the management is not allowed to know anything about it,” ****** and only works under a pseudonym. “At some point the conversations become more emotional and the women fall for it. These are not isolated cases.”
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Anne believes she will still meet her Brad Pitt. The supposed friendship has become a supposed romantic relationship. When her husband divorces her and she receives 775,000 euros in compensation, the fake Brad Pitt suddenly finds himself in the hospital with kidney cancer. He couldn't pay for an operation, could Anne help? To support his story, he sends her obviously fake photos from the hospital. She no longer notices the dizziness. She is too deeply involved in the love story. In an interview with “TF1” she says: “I didn’t think the pictures were fake. I even searched for them on the Internet. And then I said to myself: He took these selfies for me.”
“It always depends on whether you are dealing with an experienced or inexperienced scammer,” says Kiki. “Experienced people have a story, a kind of script that they stick to. Whenever the victim has doubts, they always have an answer ready.”
When Brad Pitt's alleged doctor contacts her and says Pitt is in a coma and needs dialysis every three days, she pays again. Anne pushes away the doubts. She pays $600 per treatment. “You want to believe that the person has feelings for you because it feels so good. “Someone writes every day and cares,” says Kiki. “A lot of feelings of happiness are poured out and they have the upper hand. Doubts are simply pushed away.”
She sends 830,000 euros to the fake Brad Pitt
The fraudsters use a story that Anne told the fake Brad Pitt: At 27, she got cancer herself and barely survived. Pitt, unexpectedly awakened from his coma, now asks her to cover his medical costs and promises to pay her back later. 90,000 euros for a kidney transplant. 60,000 euros for scans and cleaning. 115,000 euros for a new transplant because the first one allegedly failed. The screenshots can be seen in the French broadcaster's post. She should transfer the money to an account in Turkey. And he puts pressure on her, telling her he wants to take his own life if Anne leaves him. Anne blocked her fake lover on her cell phone 40 times and contacted him again 40 times. She lost 830,000 euros during that time.
And she loses almost everyone around her. Her daughter also tries to warn her, but to no avail.
The police advise anyone who has fallen victim to “love scamming” to stop all contact immediately and to secure all chat messages. The search for scammers is rarely successful. Many of the perpetrators are based abroad, often in Africa or the Philippines. And many victims do not report the fraud because the shame is too great.
Anne doesn't want to have to be ashamed anymore. The reason why she speaks to French television. Anne understands that she has been deceived when she sees real footage of Pitt and his jewelry designer girlfriend, Ines Ramon, on television.
Anne no longer has her own apartment and has to sell all her furniture. She attempts to take her own life three times. “I wonder why they chose me to hurt me like this. I've never hurt anyone. These people deserve hell, we have to find them.”
