The Civil Guard arrested five people and investigated ten others belonging to a criminal organization that allegedly committed fraud 325 thousand euros to two women using the method known as “fake Brad Pitt”, as revealed by the Civil Guard in a statement.
The operation, named ‘Bralina’was developed in the provinces of Almería, Málaga, Vizcaya, Barcelona, Granada, Madrid, Huelva and Seville. During the investigation, it was possible to locate, block and recover 85,000 euros of the total money swindled from two victims, the Civil Guard reports. Likewise, five home searches were carried out where numerous mobile phones, bank cardsprepaid phone cards, two personal computers and literature, including a diary in which I had written the sentences that the scammers used to deceive their victims.
The operation began in August 2023, when a woman He reported being scammed for 175,000 euros. Following the investigation, officers found that there was a Second victim in the province of Vizcaya who had also been scammed using the same method, the organization said.
This is Brad Pitt’s fake scam
During the investigation, the agents emphasize, they reported the method followed by the cybercriminals. Thus, they would have contacted the two victims via a so-called fan platform on the Internet by actor Brad Pitt.
The prisoners had make these women believe that they had managed to become intimate with the famous American actor to the point of believing they had a relationship romantic relationship with himand this fake Brad Pitt offered to invest with him in several projects, scamming them 175,000 euros to the victim from Granada and 150,000 euros to the victim from Biscay.
The researchers detected that the scammers studied the victims’ social networks before capturing them, and even drew up a psychological profile, discovering that they were two vulnerable people, with emotional deficits and in a depressive state. Later, they used instant messaging platforms to exchange messages and emails with the two women until they reached a point where they They thought they were dating Brad Pitt himselfwho promised them a romantic relationship and a future together, the Civil Guard note said.
The last step before the scam was to wait until the maximum degree of trust between the scammers and the victims was acquired to offer them They invested with him in various business projectsBoth of them made numerous money transfers until they discovered they had been scammed and reported the incident.
A network of false bank accounts
The operation, which was carried out by the Technological Crime Investigation Team of the Organic Unit of the Judicial Police (EDITE) and the @ team of the Civil Guard of Granada, also discovered that cybercriminals had created a bank account network released with forged documents from African nationals such as Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal and Sierra Leone in which the swindled money was received. They also used “mules”, who received the swindled money and then transferred it to other accounts to launder it in exchange for a small amount of money.
After investigation, the operational phase of this operation began in November 2023 where they were Two people arrested in San Isidro de Níjar (Almería) and a third individual in Malaga for receiving part of the swindled money in their bank accounts. Between January and February 2024, the Civil Guard investigated three other individuals in Amorebieta (Vizcaya), one in Huelva, three in Seville, one in Madrid, another in Barcelona and another in Granada.
Finally, the leaders of the dismantled criminal organization were arrested in Torremolinos (Málaga) and Málaga respectively.
The organization is responsible for the alleged crimes of qualified fraud, money laundering, falsification of documents and belonging to a criminal gang, concludes the statement published by the Civil Guard.
