Spanish police have arrested five individuals accused of scamming two women out of \u20ac325,000 (US$361,261) by impersonating Hollywood actor Brad Pitt through online and WhatsApp messages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The suspects contacted the victims via a fan page dedicated to the Oscar-winning actor, convincing them that they were in a romantic relationship with Pitt, according to Spain\u2019s Guardia Civil police force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Posing as Pitt, the gang members allegedly persuaded the women to invest in fictitious projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the victims, from Andalusia, was defrauded of \u20ac175,000 (US$195,000), while the other, from the Basque Country, lost \u20ac150,000 (US$166,725).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe cybercriminals had studied the victims\u2019 social media profiles and created psychological profiles, identifying them as vulnerable individuals who were emotionally isolated and experiencing depression,\u201d the police stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The scammers used messaging platforms to communicate with the women, ultimately convincing them that they were chatting with Brad Pitt himself, who promised them a romantic relationship and a future together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The police arrested five suspects in Andalusia, including the alleged ringleaders of the group. During the raids, officers seized mobile phones, bank cards, two computers, and a diary containing scripted phrases used to deceive the victims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Authorities managed to recover \u20ac85,000 (US$94,474) of the money stolen from the two women.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Spanish police have arrested five individuals accused of scamming two women out of \u20ac325,000 (US$361,261) by impersonating Hollywood actor Brad Pitt through online and WhatsApp messages. The suspects contacted the victims via a fan page dedicated to the Oscar-winning actor, convincing them that they were in a romantic relationship with Pitt, according to Spain\u2019s Guardia […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122,115],"tags":[37,159,33],"class_list":["post-4566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-romance-scams","category-scammer","tag-internet-scam","tag-romance-scammer","tag-scam-awareness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4566"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4568,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4566\/revisions\/4568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ripandscam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}