Oof. These poor women!
Multiple Brad Pitt imposters have been arrested after allegedly scamming over $360,000 out of two women! On Monday, Spain’s Interior Ministry announced the arrests in a press release. They claimed five people were arrested and have been charged with fraud, money laundering, document forgery, and membership in a criminal gang after posing as the famous actor online. Three of the scammers were taken into custody in November and two were arrested in July, per the New York Times, so this has been going on for a while! Another 10 people were also investigated. Wow.
Related: EXTREME Lengths Ines De Ramon Has Gone To Keep Brad Romance Private!
The translated statement, via CNN, explained the victims were contacted via a Brad Pitt fan site and told the actor wanted to invest in various projects with them. Investigators revealed:
“In order to find their victims, the cyber criminals studied their social networks and put together a psychological profile of them, discovering as a result that both women were vulnerable people suffering from depression and a lack of affection.”
So sad. The statement went on:
“They also used instant messaging platforms to exchange messages and emails with the two women until they thought they were chatting via WhatsApp with Brad Pitt himself, who promised them a romantic relationship and a future together.”
Awful!
It’s unclear exactly how long the fans had been communicating with the scammers, but once the impersonators won over the women, they allegedly started asking for money. One person sent them about $168,000 while the other paid around $195,000. Once the latter realized she’d been scammed, they turned to the police for help in August 2023. Sadly, only $94,000 has been recovered so far during the investigation, known as Operation Bralina.
The Civil Guard, the group in charge of the investigation, also discovered the scammers had “created a network of bank accounts registered with falsified documents for people of African nationalities […] where they received the scammed money. They also used ‘mules’ who, in exchange for a small amount of money, received the scammed money and later transferred it to other accounts to launder it.”
In a shocking and sad twist to this story, during this investigation, authorities uncovered that the victim who spent over $190K had also faced ANOTHER theft — this time from her son who was arrested for allegedly making three fraudulent charges using her bank card and for stealing about $18K from her. OMG! It was determined this had nothing to do with the Brad case, but how terrible! So many people taking advantage of this woman…
While the Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood star has not publicly addressed this scandal, his publicist Matthew Hiltzik did release a statement to the New York Times reminding everyone they’ll never hear from Brad online — he has NO social media accounts:
“It’s awful that scammers take advantage of fans’ strong connection with celebrities. But this is an important reminder to not respond to unsolicited online outreach, especially from actors who have no social media presence.”
It can be so easy to get swept up into parasocial relationships online, but this is a good reminder to always think twice about who you’re messaging. Really interrogate what they’re asking for especially. And if a celeb EVER asks you for money — especially someone as rich and famous as Brad — it should always be a major red flag! We hope investigators will be able to retrieve more of these victims’ money and that justice will be served for them!
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