Spanish police said Monday that they had arrested five people accused of scamming two women of 325,000 euros by posing as the Hollywood star Brad Pitt via online and WhatsApp messages. The suspects made contact with the women on an Internet page for fans of the Oscar-winning actor and led them to believe “they had a sentimental relationship with him”, Spain’s Guardia Civil police force said in a statement. Posing as Pitt, the members of the gang then allegedly proposed that the women invest in various projects that did not exist.

One woman, from the southern region of Andalusia, was defrauded of 175,000 euros ($195,000) while the other, from the northern Basque Country, lost 150,000 euros. “The cybercriminals, to capture the victims, had studied their social networks and made a psychological profile of them, thus discovering that both women were two vulnerable people, lacking in affection and in a state of depression,” police said.

“They also used instant messaging platforms to exchange messages and emails with the two women until they reached a point where they believed they were chatting via WhatsApp with Brad Pitt himself, who promised them a romantic relationship and a future together.” Police arrested five people in the southern region of Andalusia, including the suspected leaders of the group. They raided five homes as part of their operations, seizing several mobile phones, bank cards, two computers and a diary “in which the phrases used by the fraudsters to deceive their victims were written down”. Officers were able to recover 85,000 euros of the money that was defrauded from the two women. — AFP