New Delhi:

Brad Pitt has issued a statement after a French woman was scammed to the tune of 8,00,000 euros by a man impersonating Pitt. The actor’s team urged fans “to not respond to unsolicited online outreach”, especially from actors with no social media presence.

The story dates back to February 2023 when 53-year-old Anne was on a ski trip to Tignes and received a message on Instagram, from an account posing as Pitt’s mother Jane Etta Pitt. A day later she got a message from another account posing as the actor himself and the duo hit off immediately.

The alleged Brad Pitt account sent poems and declarations of love to Anne, making her believe that the two were in a long-distance relationship. The timing of this was apt as Anna, married to a millionaire, was going through a rough patch in her relationship.

While the person pretending to be Pitt avoided calls, he sent Artificial Intelligence-generated videos and images to Anne to convince her of his identity and love for her. He even asks her to marry him.

Soon after, Anne’s divorce was finalised and she received compensation of 7,75,000 euros. At the same time, fake Pitt shared doctored photos of him in a hospital, asking Anne for the money to treat an alleged kidney cancer. He said his bank accounts are blocked due to his ongoing divorce case with Angelina Jolie.

“It hurts me to do it, but I tell myself that I might save a man’s life,” she said on the show “Sept a huit” broadcast on Sunday (January 12) evening on local news channel TF1.

Many months later, in 2024, when Anne saw reports of Pitt’s relationship with jewellery designer Ines De Ramon, she realised she had been scammed. Anne is in hospital, being treated for severe depression.

After the news came to limelight, Pitt’s representative addressed the situation and shared a statement with E! News. “It’s awful that scammers take advantage of fans’ strong connection with celebrities,” the spokesperson said on January 15, “but this is an important reminder to not respond to unsolicited online outreach, especially from actors who have no social media presence.”

This is not the first time someone has been cheated by ‘Brad Pitt’. In September 2023, Spanish police arrested five people accused of scamming two women of 325,000 euros by posing as Brad Pitt via online and WhatsApp messages.

Mumbai:

A 35-year-old woman from Mumbai has managed to turn the tables on some online scammers, when posing as cops, they tried to extract her bank account details. Kavita Patkar, a homemaker, has now filed a complaint with the police as well, after realizing that she had inadvertently given them her Aadhaar details and photographs. 

In the complaint filed with the police, Ms Patkar said she had received a call, which initially was a recorded message saying her mobile phone services will be disconnected soon. To know why, she was asked to press 1. 

When she did so, a man identifying himself as Rohit Singh came on call, posing as TRAI official, and explained her number was used to defraud around 15 to 20 people, who had all lodged a complaint against the number holder. 

He asked if she had lost her Aadhaar card or given it to someone who might have used it to get the phone number used in this crime. 

When Ms Patkar responded in the negative, he told her she would be connected to an officer from the Crime Branch, and she can email AP@trai.give.email.in to keep her phone number operative.

Soon, she was connected to another man, who introduced himself as a police officer, Sanjay Singh. He first asked for her photo and an image of her Aadhaar card on WhatsApp. Then he said he would question her on video call. She complied with his instructions. In the video call, he was seen in a Mumbai police uniform and Mumbai police logo was in the background.
Singh informed her that her account with the ICICI bank was used to receive 10 per cent of the Rs 2.60 crore laundered by a Pooja Mhatre. 

He proceeded to show her photos of five “suspects”, asking her if she recognised any of them. After she denied knowing them, he asked her for her bank account details as proof that it was not being used by the accused, failing which she would be jailed for two years.

Ms Patkar then realised something was amiss, and informed him that she would the police in person at the CP office and provide all documents.

The man immediately disconnected after which Ms Patkar filed an FIR as she had sent them her photos and Aadhar card.

A former chief executive officer (CEO) of a US bank has been sentenced to more than 24 years in federal prison for embezzling $47 million in a cryptocurrency fraud scheme. According to CNBC, Shan Hanes, the former Heartland Tri-State Bank CEO, fell for a “pig butchering” scam that had him purchasing crypto “to unlock the supposed returns on his investments,” which he never received. The 53-year-old orchestrated a series of wire transfers over just eight weeks last year that led to the collapse and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) takeover of Heartland Tri-State Bank in Elkhart, one of only five US banks that failed in 2023. 

Pig butchering scams have become increasingly common in recent years. This scam usually involves a scammer finding and contacting a victim through a messaging app, dating app or a social media platform. They then try to form a relationship with their victim before eventually luring them into making a series of crypto investments. 

According to CNBC, Mr Hanes, from May to June 2023, made a series of wire transfers using the bank’s funds. He also embezzled money from a local church, an investment club and his daughter’s college savings account. The scammers reportedly duped him into buying cryptocurrency, insisting that they needed more funds to unlock the supposed return on his investments. However, the 53-year-old never realised any profit, and lost all of the money he stole, as a result of the scam. 

Last week, US District Judge John Broomes sentenced Mr Hanes to 24 years in prison – 29 months more than what prosecutors requested after he pleaded guilty in May to a single count of embezzlement by a bank officer.

“Hanes’ greed knew no bounds,” US Attorney Kate E. Brubacher said in a statement. “He trespassed his professional obligations, his personal relationships, and federal law. Not only did Shan Hanes betray Heartland Bank and its investors, but his illegal schemes also jeopardized confidence in financial institutions,” the attorney added. 

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Separately, Brian Mitchell, Mr Hanes’ longtime next-door neighbour, called the ex-CEO’s actions “pure evil” during the sentencing. He also said that during the sentencing Mr Hanes’ showed little remorse for his actions. 

According to the outlet, Mr Hanes began stealing after being targeted in a pig-butchering scheme in late 2022. He started making the wire transactions after communicating with the scammers on WhatsApp – whose identities are still unknown. Initially, he used personal funds to buy crypto, but in early 2023 he stole $40,000 from Elkhart Church of Christ and $10,000 from the Santa Fe Investment Club. he then used $60,000 taken from a daughter’s college fund, and nearly $1 million in stock from the Elkhart Financial Corporation. In May 2023, he then began to make wire transactions from Heartland Tri-State Bank to accounts controlled by scammers. 

Eventually, Mr Hanes was fired, and the bank was shattered and taken over by the FDIC. the 53-year-old was charged last February and placed under house arrest until his sentencing last week.

Colombo:

Sri Lankan police have arrested at least 200 foreigners, the majority of them Indians, for allegedly engaging in online financial scams, a media report said on Saturday.

The Criminal Investigations Department also found that funds obtained through such frauds have been deposited in bank accounts in the UK, Dubai and India.

News portal NewsFirst.lk quoted officials from the Criminal Investigation Department who said that there were Chinese, Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Nepali nationals among those arrested but a majority of them were Indian nationals.

About 400 computers used by the suspects are being subject to investigation.

Earlier on Friday, police spokesman SSP Nihal Thalduwa said some 60 Indians were arrested on Thursday from the Colombo suburbs of Madiwela and Battaramulla and the western coastal town of Negombo.

The CID had conducted simultaneous raids in these areas leading to the seizure of 135 mobile phones and 57 laptops.

The crackdown was the result of a complaint from a victim who was lured into a WhatsApp group promising cash for social media interactions.

Police had said the arrests exposed international links in Dubai and Afghanistan even as the victims included both locals and foreigners. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)