LOS ANGELES: A representative for Brad Pitt has warned fans to be wary of impersonation scams after a French woman lost her life savings to fraudsters posing as the Hollywood star.
The 53-year-old victim told France’s TF1 channel she believed she was in a romantic relationship with Pitt, leading her to divorce her husband and transfer €830,000 (RM3.73mil or US$850,000) to the scammers.
"It’s awful that scammers take advantage of fans’ strong connection with celebrities," a spokesperson for the Fight Club actor told US outlet Entertainment Weekly on Jan 14.
The spokesperson added it was "an important reminder to not respond to unsolicited online outreach, especially from actors who have no social media presence", such as Pitt.
The scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as AI image-creating technology to send the woman what appeared to be selfies and messages from the Oscar-winning actor.
To extract money, they pretended that the 61-year-old actor needed money to pay for kidney treatment, with his bank accounts supposedly frozen because of divorce proceedings with his ex-wife Angelina Jolie.
The woman, named only as Anne, spent a year and a half believing she was communicating with Pitt and only realised she had been scammed when news emerged of his real-life relationship with girlfriend Ines de Ramon.
She was subjected to online harassment after her interview went viral on Jan 13 – leading TF1 to withdraw it "for the protection of victims".
Some online critics accused TF1 of failing to protect a vulnerable individual who might not have been unaware of the consequences of going public.
Romantic scams have been a feature of the Internet since the advent of email, but experts say artificial intelligence has increased the risk of identity theft, hoaxes and fraud online.
Spanish police arrested five people in September accused of scamming two women out of €325,000 (RM1.46mil or US$335,000) by posing as Pitt via online and WhatsApp messages.
The suspects made contact with the women on an Internet page for his fans, authorities said.
Pitt made headlines last month when he and actress Angelina Jolie signed off on a divorce settlement, marking a turning point in the eight-year legal saga.
Once Hollywood’s highest-profile couple, Jolie filed to dissolve their marriage in September 2016. – AFP
