Spanish police have arrested 5 individuals accused of scamming two ladies out of €325,000 (£271,000) by posing because the Hollywood star Brad Pitt on-line.
The suspects made contact with the ladies on an web web page for followers of the Oscar-winning actor and led them to consider “that they had a sentimental relationship with him”, Spain’s Guardia civil police drive mentioned in a press release on Monday.
Posing as Pitt, the members of the gang then allegedly inspired the ladies to spend money on varied initiatives that didn’t exist.
One girl, from the southern area of Andalusia, was defrauded of €175,000, whereas the opposite, from the northern Basque Nation, misplaced €150,000.
“The cybercriminals, to seize the victims, had studied their social networks and made a psychological profile of them, thus discovering that each ladies had been two susceptible individuals, missing in affection and in a state of despair,” police mentioned.
“Additionally they used on the spot messaging platforms to alternate messages and emails with the 2 ladies till they reached some extent the place they believed they had been chatting by way of WhatsApp with Brad Pitt himself, who promised them a romantic relationship and a future collectively.”
Police arrested 5 individuals within the southern area of Andalusia, together with the suspected leaders of the group.
They raided 5 houses as a part of their operations, seizing a number of cellphones, financial institution playing cards, two computer systems and a diary “by which the phrases utilized by the fraudsters to deceive their victims had been written down”.
Officers had been in a position to get better €85,000 defrauded from the 2 ladies.
Supply hyperlink