The victim of a scam involving an AI posing as Brad Pitt has been left devastated, having lost £700,000. The woman is currently facing severe depression, homelessness, and financial struggles, forced to live with a friend as she tries to recover from the scam.
The victim, known only as Anne, blames her ordeal for her troubles while her lawyer has exclusively revealed her problems to the Daily Mail.
Laurène Hanna, a lawyer based in Paris, shared that the victim has been subjected to harsh criticism, being labeled as dumb, naive, and stupid. The victim has also been a target of online harassment to the extent that she has removed all her social media accounts.
Read the full tragic details of Anne’s predicament and the mental toll it has taken on her in the exclusive Mail+ interview here.
Anne tried to kill herself three times, Ms Hanna says – yet continues to face online mockery.
After falling for the scam, the victim disclosed that she had given away the money, believing it was for supporting cancer treatment for the Hollywood actor. This revelation led to the victim becoming a target of trolls who have made her life extremely difficult.
Two months ago, Anne admitted herself to a mental health clinic where she remains today.
Speaking this week, Ms Hanna described her case as ‘terrible’ and said she was ‘astonished’ by the reaction on social media.
The victim, who is known only as Anne, became the target of trolls after revealing she had been scammed by an AI version of Brad Pitt
The victim, known only as Anne, is now suffering ‘severe depression ‘, is homeless, penniless and living with a friend
Actor Brad Pitt playing Sonny Hayes in the ‘F1’ movie, December 5, 2024
‘It’s like people are discovering only now that people get scammed,’ she said.
‘Love scams on the internet are not new. Anne is really not the only one.
‘What my client needs is to be given some sensible advice and to be treated with dignity.’
Ms Hanna told how she is helping Anne pursue a civil case against her French bank for allowing her to make such huge money transfers to overseas accounts unchecked.
Anne, an interior designer, said the ordeal started when she received a message on social media from someone claiming to be the actor’s mother after sharing photos of her lavish ski trip to Tignes on Instagram.
A day later, she received a second message from an account posing as Brad Pitt, saying his mother had spoken a lot about her already.
The victim, who said she was going through a difficult period with her millionaire husband, told how she struck up an unlikely friendship with the account from February 2023, receiving poems and kind affirmations.
The scammer sent her badly photoshopped images of Brad Pitt in hospital
One of the many badly generated images apparently from a hospital bed the scammer sent
The victim started receiving requests for large sums of money having disclosed she was getting a divorce from her wealthy husband
‘There are so few men who write you this kind of thing. I liked the man I was talking to. He knew how to talk to women, it was always very well done,’ she said, as reported by BFMTV.
She revealed she did have her suspicions and thought the account was fake at first, but after messaging every day and receiving AI generated photos and videos of the star, she became more at ease.
Soon the blossoming relationship took a turn as the fake Brad Pitt proposed to her and overwhelmed her with the promise of fancy gifts.
The only catch was that she would need to pay customs fees to receive them. This soon added up to 9,000 euros (£7,566).
With the victim already having shown willing to part with money, the scammer went on to make more and more absurd requests.
When the victim told her ‘friend’ she was expecting a hefty divorce settlement from her husband, the scammer upped the stakes.
The Brad Pitt account appealed for help in funding urgent kidney cancer treatment, lamenting that they could not access funds due to their ongoing divorce from Angelina Jolie.
Anne parted with nearly one million euros before her suspicions were roused
She started having doubts when the star was pictured not in hospital – and with his new partner
Some of the AI generated photos circulated on social media
The scammer reportedly began sending AI-generated photos of Brad Pitt apparently from the confines of a hospital bed.
The two communicated by text and with photos, but the victim said he was never free for a call – a trope of online scam artists.
In sum, she parted with nearly one million euros over the course of the relationship until her suspicions were roused by seeing the actor with his new girlfriend, Ines de Ramon, in the press.
The victim went to the authorities with the story, who launched an investigation.
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