By pretending to be a sick Brad Pitt, a scammer defrauded a French woman of $850,000 by appealing to her emotions with AI-generated hospital selfies of the “Fight Club” star.
According to the Daily Beast, the victim, a 53-year-old interior designer named Anne, told the French television program “Seven to Eight” on Sunday that she was initially contacted by someone posing as the actor’s mother, Jane Etta Pitt.
Anne stated: “She told me that her son needed someone like me,” “We’re talking about Brad Pitt here, and I was stunned,”. “At first, I thought it was fake, but I didn’t really understand what was happening to me.” “There are few men who write to you like that,”. “I loved the man I was talking to. He knew how to talk to women and it was very well put together.”
Over the course of the following 18 months, Anne’s fictitious admirer continued to send her love letters, poetry, and eventually a proposal of marriage, according to the Independent.
Anne was going through a divorce at the time from her affluent, business-minded husband, who was over twenty years her senior. The scammer operating the AI bot, however, said he would send her pricey purses but warned that she would be responsible for paying the customs tax.
Naturally, it began at roughly $9,200, according to the Independent. The fake Pitt finally informed her that he had kidney cancer and need money for medical treatments since his bank accounts were purportedly frozen by Pitt’s real-life ex, Angelina Jolie.
A phony photograph of Pitt in a hospital room was followed by an email from a “doctor” claiming that the “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” star was near death.
According to the site, Anne transferred large sums of money, over $850,000, to a Turkish account.
