cryptopolitan.com
A 53-year-old French interior designer known as “Anne” has found unwanted social media fame after she fell victim to a Brad Pitt AI romance scam that went on for over 18 months. The impersonators extorted $855,000 from the victim, who believed she was sending the funds to assist her lover, Brad Pitt.
Perpetrators of romance scams have long preyed on lonely individuals seeking companionship with various deceptive tactics. Over the years, these methods have become fairly easy to spot and evade. However, recent developments in artificial intelligence have shifted the balance of power back to the fraudsters.
Anne meets Brad Pitt
Anne’s ordeal began in early 2023 when she was contacted by someone claiming to be the actor’s mother, Jane Etta Pitt. The person impersonating Brad Pitt’s mother then introduced her to another individual claiming to be Brad, who then expressed romantic interest in her.
Over 18 months, the scammers strengthened the relationship using AI-generated photos and messages on several platforms, including WhatsApp and Instagram. The communications apparently helped convince Anne of their identity.
After a while, the fake Brad Pitt started to ask Anne for money, claiming he needed it for cancer treatment. The scammers claimed that Pitt’s bank accounts were frozen due to his divorce proceedings with his ex-wife, Angelina Jolie.
Anne, though doubtful at first, ended up transferring the large sum of money to an account in Turkey after receiving an email from the doctor who claimed to be treating Pitt. “I’m not used to social media, and I didn’t really understand what was happening to me,” Anne told TF1.
Anne only realized she was the victim of a scam after seeing pictures of Pitt with his current partner, Inés de Ramon.
Anne shared her story on the French television channel TF1 and rather than compassion or comfort, she was hit with a wave of mockery and trolling from the viewers of the show. The backlash got so bad that the broadcast had to be removed.
TF1 presenter Harry Roselmack posted on his account that the broadcast would be withdrawn from the station’s platforms in order to protect the victim.
This incident is just one of the many similar schemes gaining popularity in recent years. In 2024, reported scams involving Brad Pitt impersonators in Spain led to the arrest of five individuals after they conned the sum of $350,000 from two women.
In 2022, romance scams ranked second among the most costly scams reported in Canada, resulting in losses of $59M from 1400 reported cases. Similarly, such scams accounted for over $652M in lost funds in the US in 2023.
Romance scams aside, advancements in artificial intelligence have also made the job of identity thieves and online fraudsters easier, contributing to over $8.8M in losses in the US.
Artificial intelligence gives cybercriminals easy access to sophisticated tools that amplify the effectiveness of their scams.
Using AI tools available to the average, non-paying user, anyone can generate images and create deepfake videos to populate a fake profile on dating platforms or social media.