Granada woman swindled out of 170,000 euros by crooks posing as Brad Pitt

A middle-aged woman from Granada was duped into believing she was going to marry the American actor Brad Pitt but in reality she was living a nightmare woven by heartless swindlers. The lawyer representing the victim, Antonio Estella Aroza (of the Granada office of Esya Legal), admits that when he was told about the case he thought it was a joke.

The fake Brad Pitt - probably several members of a group of fraudsters - tricked the victim into transferring a whopping 170,000 euros to him. "It's not that she's a millionaire, far from it. She had recently received an inheritance and therefore had this capital at her disposal," the lawyer said.

The bait was an invitation she received in her email to join a Brad Pitt fan club. It seemed harmless. Like so many other people in the world, the victim was a fan of the famous actor. She couldn't even suspect that she had just walked into a trap. The supposed forum was a sham, a trap to fleece her.

The victim lives with her mother. She has no children and no partner. So Brad Pitt's supposed circle of admirers became one of her main entertainments. "At one point, they asked her if she wanted to be friends with Brad Pitt and correspond with him. Imagine her surprise and her joy," said the lawyer.

It was all a lie, of course. But the truth is that she began to 'cyber-correspond' with the fictitious Brad Pitt. She was a prisoner of a hoax that would not stop growing. The scammers asked the victim to send money to bank accounts in both Spain and several foreign countries. The first requests for funds from the fake Brad Pitt were relatively modest, five or six thousand euros, but as the relationship intensified, the amount increased. The record was a transfer of 35,000 euros.

"She became convinced that she had a relationship with Brad Pitt, that she was dating him. In fact, she reproached him on occasion because she had seen him at such and such a festival in the company of another woman," the lawyer said.

The next thing was the wedding. Brad Pitt was going to visit her in person with the intention of asking her to marry him. The announcement was accompanied by the usual requests for money. But the star of World War Z didn't show up.

It was then that the victim turned to the office of Antonio Estella Aroza for advice and a formal complaint was filed.

"I have told my client that this is going to take a long time, that she has to be aware that it is going to take seven or eight years to reach a possible outcome. We believe that, in addition to the fraud, there may be alleged negligence on the part of the bank. There are regulations to prosecute money laundering that may not have been complied with," the lawyer said.