A private investigator says they have tracked down a scammer who pretended to be Brad Pitt so they could trick a woman into sending £700,000 – and revealed who they are impersonating now
A heartless scammer who conned a woman out of £700,000 by pretending to be Brad Pitt is now imitating another celebrity, it has emerged.
The 53-year-old woman named Anne, from France, was tricked into believing she was in a romantic relationship with the Hollywood superstar – and tragically ended up losing most of her life savings to the imposter after they claimed he was dying of cancer. Now, a top private investigator claims to have unmasked the person responsible for the eye-watering romance fraud, and revealed which big-name celebrity they had more recently taken to impersonating.
Marwan Ouarab, founder of the Paris-based Find My Scammer group, said he tracked down the conman using a booby-trapped link which gave him access to his phone. He found he was a young man living in Nigeria, who had worked as part of a team of “three or four” people, and had at least 34 other victims.
Mr Ourab then shared that the scammer is still at large posing as another Hollywood star, and said: “He’s still active, now pretending to be Keanu Reeves.” He also said has shared evidence with Nigerian authorities and Interpol, but is doubtful that anything will be done.
Detailing how the heartbreaking romance scam began, Anne recently told French television programme Sept à huit that the person posing as Brad Pitt initiated contact, and the pair began exchanging messages. The fake Fight Club star even sent her love poems. Anne said: “There are very few men who write you this kind of thing. I liked the man I was talking to. He knew how to talk to women, he always did it very well.”
But things started to go wrong when the scammer told her he had been blocked from accessing his bank accounts following his divorce from Angelina Jolie. They then went on to claim he needed money for cancer treatments, even sending her photoshopped photos of Brad lying in a hotel bed.
After handing over a total of €830,000 (£700,000) to the scammer, Anna realised she had been tricked because she saw photos of the real Brad in public with his new Swiss girlfriend, Ines de Ramon. By then, it was too late. She has now been left ruing the fake romance, which cost her most of her life savings. She admitted she was “not used to social media” prior to the scam and was surprised to have been so directly targeted, saying: “I wonder why they chose me to do so much harm. I have never harmed anyone. These people deserve hell.”
Reacting to the incident today, Brad Pitt’s spokesperson clarified that he does not have any social media accounts – and warned fans not to respond to people online claiming to be celebrities. A statement said: “It’s awful that scammers take advantage of the strong bond between fans and celebrities. This is an important reminder not to respond to unsolicited online messages, especially from actors who are not present on social networks.”
