A woman has lost £10,000 after scammers duped her into believing that she was helping George Clooney get a divorce.
It all started when the unnamed victim, who hails from Argentina, found a Facebook account claiming to be the famous actor.
Shortly after following the account, she received a message asking if she had a Fans Club card. From there, she spoke to the account every day for six weeks.
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The account, which was apparently verified, even sent her AI-generated videos of the star, making her truly believe she was speaking to him.
In several clips, the deep-fake Clooney can be seen blinking and moving his mouth as he asked her whether she was okay.
"Thank you so much for supporting me. I promise to pay everything to you. I love you," it said.
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He also told the woman that he needed money in order to get a divorce from his wife, human rights lawyer Amal Clooney.
She told local press that the star had asked her put money on a Fans Club card and told her he would help her get a job to thank her.
She said: "He told me that he was going to help me get a job and so asked me for money for the card. Then he would ask for more money to be sent and later, I would need to send more to activate it."
It wasn't until she'd already transferred £10,000 that she realised something didn't seem right.
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After suspecting that she'd been scammed, she contacted the FBI.
But she isn't the first person to fall victim to a romance scam.
Earlier this year, a 53-year-old French woman divorced her millionaire husband after being under the impression she was dating Brad Pitt.
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The woman, who goes by 'Anne', told BFM TV that the ordeal began in 2023, when she received a Facebook message from a scammer posing as Pitt's mother.
She soon started speaking to another account, which claimed to be the actor himself, and they struck up an unlikely relationship.
"I liked the man I was talking to. He knew how to talk to women, it was always very well done," she said, as reported by BFMTV.
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Over the course of their correspondence, Anne shelled out a staggering €830,000 (approximately £697,000) to help with what she believed was cancer treatment for the Hollywood A-lister as well as expensive gifts for her. And, after months of back and forth, the scammer eventually proposed to Anne, reportedly prompting her to divorce her husband.
It was only when Anne saw paparazzi pics of the real Pitt with girlfriend, Ines de Ramon, that she realised she had been grossly deceived.
Anne went on to alert authorities of what happened to her in 2024, who later launched an investigation and concluded that the criminals were three Nigerian citizens, as per the Daily Mail.
Topics: Celebrity, Money, Technology
Bec Oakes