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A scammer who conned a French woman out of almost £700,000 by posing as Brad Pitt has been tracked down in Nigeria, according to local media reports.

Marwan Ouarab, founder of the site Find My Scammer, has been helping victim Anne to find the person responsible for scamming her out of £697,000 using deep fake images.

It comes after the 53-year-old divorcee shared with French media this week that she had parted with a fortune to help with what she believed was cancer treatment for the film star.

According to 20 Minutes, Mr Ouarab contacted the fake Brad Pitt using information given to him by Anne.

He then sent him a 'booby-trapped link' disguised in a message, which when clicked on, gave him access to the con artist's phone.

This was a success, Mr Ouarab told the news outlet, and his team managed to uncover the identity of the scammer, as well as the address for where he carries out his scams in Nigeria.

Not only that, but Mr Ouarab said the scammer is now pretending to be another A-list celebrity with the aim of scamming other victims out of a fortune.

'Today, he is still active, except that he is now pretending to be Keanu Reeves,' he told 20Minutes.

Mr Ouarab added: 'It's a small group of three or four fairly young people who are causing damage. On the fake Brad Pitt's device alone, we counted 34 victims.'

He told the news outlet he had contacted the Nigerian authorities and has promised to hand over all the information he had on the scammer.

Victim Anne told French channel TF1 that she had received a message on social media from someone claiming to be the actor's mother before hearing from an account she believed to be Brad Pitt himself.

Anne thought she had grown close to the actor after months of talking, before things took a romantic turn. But after disclosing that she had separated from her millionaire partner, she said she was asked for money to help with health complications as his money was tied up in divorce proceedings.

The scammers used fake social media and WhatsApp accounts, as well as AI image-creating technology to send Anne what appeared to be selfies and messages from Pitt, stringing her along until things came to a head last summer.

The victim ultimately realised the mistake when she saw that the actor was not, in fact, in hospital, and had been pictured with a new girlfriend. She was later hospitalised with severe depression, but decided to speak out and raise awareness.

Responding to Anne's story, The Fight Club actor's agent told Entertainment Weekly that it was 'awful' that 'scammers take advantage of the strong bond between fans and celebrities', before warning others 'not to respond to unsolicited' messages, 'especially from actors who have no social media presence'.

Since speaking out about her experience, Anne says she has been on the receiving end of a wave of online harassment and mockery, leading to the interview being withdrawn.

'The story broadcast this Sunday has resulted in a wave of harassment against the witness,' TF1 presenter Harry Roselmack wrote on his X account on Tuesday. 'For the protection of victims, we have decided to withdraw it from our platforms.'

Anne was said by the channel at the time of its broadcast to have been suffering from severe depression and received hospital treatment.

The interview, in which she was filmed openly and even shared family photos with reporters, went viral on Monday.

It sparked a deluge of mocking comments and jokes, but some online critics accused TF1 of failing to protect a vulnerable individual who might not have been unaware of the consequences of going public.

Toulouse Football Club tweeted that 'Brad told us that he would be at the stadium on Wednesday' for the team's next match, before withdrawing the message and apologising.

Netflix France also posted on social media promoting 'four films to see with Brad Pitt (really) for free'.

Anne, a 53-year-old interior decorator with mental health problems, spent a year and half believing she was communicating with Pitt and only realised she had been scammed when news emerged of Pitt's real-life relationship with girlfriend Ines de Ramon.

She told the 'Seven to Eight' programme on the TF1 channel that the ordeal started when she received a message on social media from someone claiming to be the actor's mother after sharing photos of her lavish ski trip to Tignes on Instagram.

'She told me that her son needed someone like me,' Anne said.

Just a day later, she received a second message from an account posing as Brad Pitt, saying his mother had spoken a lot about her already.

The victim, who said she was going through a difficult period with her millionaire husband, said she struck up an unlikely friendship with the account from February 2023, receiving poems and kind affirmations.

'There are so few men who write you this kind of thing. I liked the man I was talking to. He knew how to talk to women, it was always very well done,' she said, as reported by BFMTV.

She revealed she did have her suspicions and thought the account was fake at first, but after messaging every day and receiving AI generated photos and videos of the star, she became more at ease.

Soon the blossoming friendship took a turn as the fake Brad Pitt proposed to her and overwhelmed her with the promise of fancy gifts.

The only catch was that she would need to pay customs fees to receive them. This soon added up to 9,000 euros (£7,566).

'Like a fool, I paid... Every time I doubted him, he managed to dissipate my doubts,' she said.

With the victim already having shown willing to part with money, the scammer went on to make more and more absurd requests.

When the victim told her 'friend' that she was expecting a hefty divorce settlement from her husband, the scammer upped the stakes.

The Brad Pitt account appealed for help in funding urgent kidney cancer treatment, lamenting that they could not access funds due to their ongoing divorce from Angelina Jolie.

The scammer reportedly began sending AI-generated photos of Brad Pitt apparently from the confines of a hospital bed.

The two communicated by text and with photos, but the victim said he was never free for a call - a trope of online scam artists.

In sum, she parted with nearly one million euros over the course of the relationship until her suspicions were roused by seeing the actor with his new girlfriend, Ines de Ramon, in the press.

Anne went to the authorities with the story, who launched an investigation.

It was unclear whether she had been able to recoup any of her money nearly two years since the relationship started.

BFMTV reports that the victim is currently hospitalised in a clinic, with severe depression.

Followers of the story shared some sympathy for the victim.

Sarah Bee wrote on X: 'Romance scams are the cruellest.'

Another user questioned whether the victim could have Googled whether the star was in hospital to verify the claims.

The victim parted with nearly one million euros before her suspicions were roused.

She started having doubts when the star was pictured not in hospital - and with his new partner.


She started having doubts when the star was pictured not in hospital - and with his new partner

One user weighed in: 'Why you need to know what your old folks are up to before they give away your inheritance to Brad Pitt'

User Jay Kennedy replied: 'My step mom will not stop sending money to the Cello player.

'My father and I keep telling her. She just keeps going to get gift cards.

'It's sad how lonely and lost older people get. To where they are so delusional and do this.'

Rexymania:
Him own duh finish lol he will vomit all the money. Idiot. They are never satisfied... €700k and you never start up a business that will be fetching you that amount, at least in 2 years.

derico:
Somewhere in our mind, we are proud that Nigerians pulled a clean AI scam so soon.
Like we beat a whole techie India to the title.

Naija to the world!

Hushpuppi would be proud right now!

ibechris:
Indians are using their knowledge to become big honest CEO's world over,but Nigerians are using theirs to create bad image world over.

LILTJAY:
One Benin boy don pack am for celeb unto Brad Pitt
If na me, na to find one cool Caribbean country go and go incognito there.

ednut1:
Many of the victims themselves should be locked up. How can you send money to someone you have never met

derico:
Somewhere in our mind, we are proud that Nigerians pulled a clean AI scam so soon.
Like we beat a whole techie India to the title.

Naija to the world!

Hushpuppi would be proud right now!