The suspects contacted the two alleged victims through a website aimed at fans of the actor, and over time, managed to make them believe they were in a “romantic relationship with him,” the civil police said in a statement.
Impersonating the American star, the gang members then suggested that the two women invest in various projects that did not exist.
A woman from Andalusia was defrauded of $194,000, while another woman living in the Basque Country lost $167,000.
The statement said that “the cybercriminals studied their social media pages” and thus “discovered that the two women were weak, suffering from emotional deficiencies and a state of depression“
They also used “instant messaging platforms to exchange messages and emails with them so that they believed they were talking over WhatsApp With Brad Pitt himself, and the latter promised them “a romantic relationship and a shared future,” according to the same source.
Police arrested five suspected members of the gang in Andalusia and recovered $95,000 of the total fraud.
During the searches, investigators seized mobile phones, bank cards, two personal computers, and notes “in which the phrases used by fraudsters to deceive their victims were recorded.”
