She recalled: “We started communicating normally, like two people meeting, very gently. He asks me a lot of questions about how I feel, how I like things, how I see life.”
Over several months, the scammer bombarded her with messages professing his love for her. “My love, you are my everything now and forever,” he wrote in one message.
Patricia admitted that she viewed it as a “real relationship developing”.
“I’m letting myself drift into this feeling of love,” she said.
‘Once this fee is paid, there’s no chance I won’t be with you’
When Patricia asked to meet, the scammer said his management had a mandatory fee of £47,000 for those wishing to meet him.
“In my heart, I know very well that once this fee is paid, there’s no chance I won’t be with you,” he told her.
Patricia had initially refused, but later changed her mind, explaining: “I thought to myself, well, maybe that’s how they do things ... I’ve never been in contact with an actor before.”
Patricia made an initial payment of £28,000 and then another of £18,000.
She made plans to visit the scammer between August 28 and September 7, 2024, at the Venice Film Festival, which the real Brad Pitt was attending to promote his film Wolfs.
“I’m packing a small bag, hoping he’ll tell me to come,” she recalled.
No phone call came but the fraudster sent her flowers with the note: “I love you so much, baby. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you. Pitt.”
The scammers mocked up images of Pitt in hospital to trick victims into sending cash to pay for supposed cancer treatment
During this time she transferred him £9300 for spurious medical expenses and then another £9300.
Patricia said she felt overwhelmed by stress but kept paying because she believed he loved her.
At the end of 2024, the conman finally invited Patricia to Los Angeles to meet him.
Patricia ended up spending three weeks in a hotel, drinking cocktails by herself as she waited.
A new “manager” for Pitt then demanded an £18,000 fine from her for attempting to approach the actor without his consent – which she paid.
Back home in Switzerland, Patricia came across the story of Anne, a 53-year-old French designer scammed by a fake Brad Pitt.
Anne believed that she and the Hollywood star had fallen in love online and would marry, so she divorced her husband and then wired fraudsters all the money from the settlement.
‘How could I have been so easily deceived?’
After nearly a year of correspondence, Patricia finally went to the police.
She filed a complaint and hired a private investigator to track down her scammers, who are believed to be in Nigeria and appeared to be the same gang that defrauded Anne.
“I know I spent almost a year living in a relationship that didn’t exist,” Patricia recalled.
“You think to yourself: how could I have been so easily deceived?”
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