Associated Incidents
Who is hiding behind the fake Brad Pitt? This is the question that the financial brigade's investigations will have to try to answer, four days after the broadcast of the TF1 report on Anne's misadventure. This 53-year-old woman was swindled, between February 2023 and June 2024, more than 800,000 euros by a scammer pretending to be the actor.
Sweet words, proof of love, deepfake... These scammers, also called "grazers", tried everything for 16 months to deceive this mother and siphon off her bank account. "They took advantage of my humanity, my kindness and my generosity," she explained this Wednesday in Le Parisien, from Reunion Island where she took refuge with a friend after having almost "lost everything".
"Brouteurs" identified in Nigeria?
All that remains is to find the perpetrator. According to the Saint-Denis de La Réunion prosecutor's office, which Le Parisien contacted, "an investigation is indeed underway with the financial brigade". The authorities are now trying "to identify the accounts that benefited from the funds", but "no suspect has been identified at this time".
Since the fall, Anne had tried to solve this case on her own by approaching Marwan Ouarab, founder of FindmyScammer, who is dedicated to finding the "grabbers" of the victims who contact him. According to his investigation, the scammers are in Nigeria: "Thanks to the information that Anne gave me, the numbers, email addresses, social media accounts, we were able to send her a booby-trapped link that revealed the exact GPS coordinates of the house where her Internet connection comes from."
Behind, three men in their twenties with a well-rehearsed scenario. The first would be in charge of relations with the victim. The second would be responsible for “creating false identities and linking American telephone numbers with accounts that speak to Anne on social networks”. Finally, the third would intervene to “manage the money laundering and allow the scammers to withdraw the funds in cash”.