Spanish authorities have arrested two people who deceived a young woman by posing as actor Brad Pitt in order to steal €170,000 from her.
The story goes back to 2022, when this woman was contacted via Facebook by some kind of fan club of the actor.
Over time and several messages, the woman came to believe that she was talking to Brad Pitt himself.
Using a fake profile, the fraudsters managed to impersonate the American actor and gain the victim’s trust.
These criminals sent him messages and photos that they used to steal 170,000 euros (approximately $182,000) under false pretenses.
Two people arrested over the ‘fake Brad Pitt’ scam in Spain #CooperativeWithYou pic.twitter.com/xMqweZ8M6d
— Cooperative (@Cooperative) February 2, 2024
They were captured and released.
The woman’s lawyer, Antonio Estella Aroza, said that after several months of investigation, the authorities managed to track down the fraudsters.
In this way, the criminal investigation department checked and analyzed the messages and calls of this fake “Brad Pitt”, as well as the IP addresses and the destination of the money transferred by the victim.
All these investigations made it possible to identify the two fraudsters by tracking their communications on networks and intercepting their calls to catch them in the city of Almería.
Although the two detainees were released under charges, the court blocked several accounts containing the stolen money; so that the woman does not lose hope of getting some of her money back.
However, the victim’s lawyer believed that the two arrested were part of the structure of a larger network.
This gang would have the goal of accepting and passing on the money, although he doubts that these people were responsible for the conversations with the victim.
After the complaint was formalized and the case was made public, numerous people with similar concerns who could even be linked to this conspiracy contacted the lawyer.
You might be interested in: