Have you recently been contacted by a celebrity?
Romance scams are a growing problem, affecting people from all walks of life. These scams prey on emotional vulnerabilities, exploiting the desire for connection, love, or attention. While financial institutions have regulations in place to spot fraudulent activities, these measures often fall short when it comes to preventing scams that manipulate emotions. As technology continues to evolve, scammers find new ways to deceive. Understanding the emotional triggers behind these scams and raising awareness are the best ways to protect vulnerable people from falling victim to fraud.
Building Trust Before Requesting Money
Recently, a French woman in her 50s fell victim to a sophisticated romance scam, losing nearly €830,000 to a man posing as Brad Pitt on Instagram. Despite numerous red flags, she was drawn into a fake relationship that ultimately drained her life savings.
The scam is as shocking as it is heartbreaking. Many celebrities have warned their followers about scammers using AI to replicate their voices and likeness. Other stars, such as Johnny Depp and even the recently deceased Alain Delon, have also been exploited. In Delon’s case, scammers used his image after his death to promote a fraudulent online casino scheme.
While on vacation with her family in February 2023, the victim, new to social media, joined Instagram to share vacation photos. It wasn’t long before she was contacted by a woman claiming to be Brad Pitt’s mother. Skeptical at first, she eventually heard from “Brad Pitt” himself. They started talking daily and quickly became “friends.”
The interactions became more personal, with the scammer sending fake documents and photos to build trust. Eventually, a deepfake news video of the “actor” appeared, convincing her further. The scam escalated when the fake Brad Pitt claimed his accounts were frozen due to a dispute with his ex-wife, Angelina Jolie, and asked her to pay customs fees for luxury items.
Financial and Emotional Impact of Romance Scams
After receiving a €775,000 settlement from a divorce, the victim handed the money over to the scammer. The false Brad Pitt continued to ask for money, even claiming he was sick and needed expensive treatment. Despite multiple attempts to stop their communications, she kept sending funds, manipulated by fake agents and fabricated stories. When interviewed, the victim said:
“I paid the €5,000 like a fool. Every time I had doubts, he managed to convince me otherwise”
It wasn’t until June 2024, when the real Brad Pitt publicly confirmed his relationship with Ines de Ramon, that she realized she had been scammed. By then, she had lost €830,000. Stripped of her wealth, devastated by the emotional toll, and suffering from severe depression, she filed a police report and is now living with a friend.
Social Engineering Tactics of Romance Scams
Emotional Manipulation in Romance Scams
Social engineering is a type of manipulation that preys on human emotions and relationships instead of relying on technical tricks. In this case, the fraudster didn’t ask for money right away. Instead, he spent over a year and a half carefully building an emotional connection with her. The scammer used a combination of psychological tactics and involved multiple people to make her believe she was in a genuine secret relationship with Brad Pitt.
New to social media and using Instagram for the first time, she became an easy target. The scammer exploited various technologies to create convincing evidence that supported his lies. For instance, he used a fake news broadcast with AI presenters, falsely announcing that the actor’s relationship with the victim had become public. To further manipulate her, the scammer blamed the victim, suggesting that she had leaked their relationship to the media. This tactic was designed to make her feel guilty and responsible for the situation while deepening his control over her.
From the start, the scammer used fake documents, including an American passport, to make himself seem legitimate. He was careful not to ask for money right away and slowly built stories that made his requests seem reasonable. He consistently provided fake invoices to justify the transfers, including ones from the Mayo Clinic for medical treatment costs. The victim, who was also battling cancer, felt a deep sympathy for his situation. This emotional manipulation made it much easier for the scammer to convince her to send money.
Execution of Romance Scams
The scammer’s tactics fit the profile of a typical romance scam, using charm to exploit emotional vulnerability. Among the romance scam warning signs published by the AARP are behaviors such as lavishing the victim with excessive attention, often through an overwhelming number of texts, emails, and phone calls to build trust quickly. Another common tactic is repeatedly promising to meet in person, only to cancel with last-minute excuses. Scammers may also express strong emotions or talk about a future together despite having little genuine connection, and eventually, they ask for money, often under the guise of an urgent financial need or emergency.
Scammers can set up a fake persona with minimal effort by creating a free social media account or phone number, and easily accessible software to forge documents. According to the paper The Geography of Online Dating Fraud [1], over 50% of these types of scams originate from West Africa. Romance scam affects both genders, and the rise of social engineering tactics is driven by our increasingly connected world. As these scams become more sophisticated, they are harder to spot and stop.
The largest single origin by far was Nigeria, at over 30% of the dataset. West Africa in general accounts for over 50%.
Systems to Prevent Bank Frauds
Now nearly destitute, the victim of the fake Brad Pitt scam is suing her bank for not warning her about the suspicious nature of the transactions. The principles of anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CTF) in France are based on international standards that originated from U.S. regulations. These standards are designed to prevent illegal financial activities by establishing strict monitoring and reporting systems.
This romance scam emphasizes the role financial institutions play in preventing fraud, a responsibility that traces back to the 1970 U.S. legislation known as the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). This Act, which laid the foundation for the country’s AML efforts, required banks and financial institutions to report any transactions over $10,000 in order to detect and prevent illegal activities such as money laundering and terrorist financing. This law was introduced in response to concerns about criminals using foreign bank accounts to hide illegal funds.
The BSA also made it easier for law enforcement to gather evidence for investigations and hold criminals accountable. Over time, the $10,000 reporting threshold set by the BSA became a global standard, adopted by many countries to create a unified approach to combating financial crimes. Organizations like the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) helped spread these standards worldwide, and countries worked together to ensure that financial systems remained secure and transparent.
Could Her Bank Have Prevented the Romance Scam?
The French Tracfin is the national financial intelligence unit, tasked with combating money laundering and terrorist financing [2]. In close collaboration with international agencies and standards, financial institutions must submit suspicious transaction reports (STRs) when they detect potential illegal activities. Certain institutions, such as credit and payment providers, must also report specific transactions. This includes money transfers over €1,000 or cash deposits and withdrawals over €10,000 monthly. Whistleblowers are also protected by law, and it is illegal to tip off those under investigation. In 2022, financial institutions submitted 93.5% of the STRs received by Tracfin [3].
Among others, the banking regulations impose a “duty of vigilance” on financial institutions for foreign transfers and unusual transactions. This means banks must closely monitor transactions, especially those involving other countries or that seem irregular. The goal is to detect and prevent any type of illegal activities. The victim now holds the bank accountable for failing to comply with Tracfin. Despite the victim making large transfers to foreign bank accounts, the bank did not require her to sign a liability waiver, nor did it flag the suspicious activity. Over the course of a few months, she moved two to three hundred thousand euros, far exceeding her usual banking transactions, yet the bank took no action to prevent the fraud.
Preying on Human Emotions
Bank tellers often witness the heartbreaking stories of individuals falling victim to emotional manipulation. One common thread among these victims is a deep, overwhelming desire for connection. Whether it is the need for love, adventure, or simply attention. Many of them, especially those who are lonely or isolated, fall prey to scams that exploit these emotions. The scammers’ elaborate fantasies offer the illusion of romance, companionship, or a better life, pulling these individuals into a false reality where they are promised the fulfillment of their deepest desires.
Elderly people are most likely to fall into these traps. Often living alone, they can be willing to risk everything for the hope of love, even if it means losing their hard-earned savings. For many victims, it is not just about money, it is about the false promise of companionship that feels real. Scammers exploit these human vulnerabilities, especially the yearning for affection and low self-esteem. For these victims, the scam goes beyond financial loss, it manipulates their need for connection, leaving them not only financially devastated but emotionally shattered as well.
Legal Businesses Capitalizing on Emotional Connection
As many victims struggle with loneliness and seek external validation, certain businesses have found ways to capitalize on these emotions. Platforms like OnlyFans, Twitch, and now AI-driven services are profiting from creating emotional connections to extract money from users. Facilitated by advanced technology and AI-powered chatbots, some offer a false sense of intimacy that feels real to customers.
In some cases, AI models now even replicate the “girlfriend experience,” such as the Japanese “Waifu” phenomenon, where people are willing to pay large monthly sums for the illusion of attention and companionship. While these services legally satisfy the need for attention, they result in a similar outcome as romance scams, that of trading money for a perceived emotional engagement.
Although bank regulations play a role in detecting fraud, they can’t fully prevent scams. As long as emotional manipulation is at play, these scams will continue to evolve. Raising awareness is necessary as loneliness and the need for connection are powerful motivators.
Key Takeaways
- People fall victim to romance scams every day, with fraudsters exploiting emotional needs.
- Bank regulations alone can’t stop scams because of the human involvement.
- Services that exploit emotional vulnerabilities, like some social platforms, mirror the harmful effects of romance scams.
Related Posts
References
- Edwards, M., Suarez-Tangil, G., Peersman, C., Stringhini, G., Rashid, A., and Whitty, M. The Geography of Online Dating Fraud. Presented at the Workshop on Technology and Consumer Protection, San Francisco, California, 2018.
- Autorité des Marchés Financiers. Sector Risk Assessment on Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing. 2024.
- Ministère de l’Économie et des Finances, Tracfin. AML/CFT: Reporting Entities Activity 2022 Review. 2023.
