Recently there are reports that a bunch of scammers who are posing as Hollywood icon Brad Pitt targeted two ladies in Spain and tricked them into believing that the ladies are romantically involved with the actor. Then the 5 men pretending to be Brad Pitt took exactly €325,000 (about Rs 3 crore) from the two women. Regarding this, the Guardia Civil, Spain’s national police force, has arrested five people in connection with this scam.
With the warrant of defrauding two women out of 325,000 euros (over Rs 3 crore), Spanish police have arrested five people for posing as Hollywood star Brad Pitt through emails and WhatsApp messages. The fake Brad Pitt who were the scammers contacted the women through a fan page of Brad Pitt. The victims of the scam reported that the scammers promised romantic relationships which lured them into investing in several non-existent projects. The ladies were targeted with the help of their social networks.
Spain’s Guardia Civil police told media that “The cyber criminals, to capture the victims, had studied their social networks and made a psychological profile of them, thus discovering that both women were two vulnerable people, lacking in affection and a state of depression.” In a similar instance, a woman was lured out of 175,000 euros (nearly Rs 2 crore) in the southern region of Andalusia and another from the northern Basque Country was lured of 150,000 euros (over Rs 1 crore).
Spanish police have arrested five people from Andalusia and also raided at least five homes in connection with the same. With the arrested men the police seized several mobile phones, two computers, bank cards, and a diary. The diary contained all of the phrases which the scammers used to lure the victims.
Spanish police also collectively retained 85,000 euros (Rs 80,000 approximately) from the five arrested. According to Marca, which is a Spanish tabloid, reported to the media that the operations were carried out in the provinces of Almería, Málaga, Vizcaya, Barcelona, Granada, Madrid, Huelva, and Seville. In January a similar incident took place where a 63-year-old woman was scammed by someone who was posed as Hollywood star Kevin Costner. The common link was the fan page followed by the lady who mistook it for the official page of the legendary actor. Later she was asked repeatedly to purchase a voucher of 100 pounds to become an “official Costner fan”.
