A 53-year-old French woman, Anne Deneuchatel said she was left penniless and suffering from severe depression after falling victim to the online love scam who swindled her of more than £700,000 .
Anne Deneuchatel said the Nigerian fraudsters using AI to pose as Brad Pitt, has said her divorce was a good thing that came out of the experience.
The interior designer-turned author said she was lonely and in an unhappy marriage with a ‘selfish and manipulative millionaire businessman’ when she received a message from a stranger on Instagram, claiming to be Brad Pitt’s mother.
After, she was introduced to the American actor and they began chatting on channel Telegram. She became ‘addicted’ to talking to him and lived in ‘total fantasy’.
So, when the scammer gradually began asking her for money, she felt validated and loved – two qualities that were missing in her marriage.
“My husband had put me in a bind,” Ms Deneuchatel told French newspaper Le Monde.
“He said I should be content to be a trophy. I no longer had any independence. At one point, it seemed easier to help ‘Brad’ than to help myself.”
Months later, she managed to divorce her husband, which she says “is the only positive thing” to have come out of the scam
She was finally forced to snap out of it after receiving a request to pay for a £13,000 trip on a private jet.
Emotionally exhausted and isolated from friends and family, Ms Deneuchatel reported the scam to the police.
The people behind the con were identified as three men living in a villa in Nigeria.
Credit: Vanguard
