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You’re not beautiful, bro.
A cold-hearted romance scammer used AI to trick a “lonely” retiree into believing she was dating “You’re Beautiful” singer James Blunt — so he could swindle more than $10,000 from her.
The con man made phony AI-generated photos and videos of the handsome British pop star speaking to the 57-year-old Brazilian victim to dupe her out of more than a year, the UK Sun reported.
“I wasn’t expecting him to contact me. I had lost my mother, lost my brother, and I was very lonely,” said the woman from Sao Joao da Boa Vista, who was not identified.
The fake Romeo first contacted the woman via direct message after she commented on the real singer’s livestream last year — and soon began love-bombing her with intense, romantic baloney.
The smooth-talking swindler claimed to be living in a London hotel after separating from his wife, and said he wanted to fly to Brazil to meet her.
He told her he was cash-poor due to a falling out with his “manager,” who blocked his bank accounts, and said he needed a small loan to buy a plane ticket to visit her.
“He told me he had argued with his manager and that they had frozen his account,” the woman recalled. “He said he didn’t even have money to buy food.”
At first, he just asked for several hundred bucks.
“He told me: ‘If you can get me BRL 3,000, ($600) I’ll find the rest and come to Brazil.”
The smitten victim eventually borrowed money from her bank to send to the scammer — but his requests for cash kept coming.
He said his luggage had been stolen in the Sao Paulo airport, that he was stranded at a gas station, and needed money for a long cab ride from Sao Paulo, among other lies.
She eventually realized she was being scammed when she traveled nearly 75 miles by bus to the city of Campinas last week to meet him and he never showed up.
“When I arrived at the bus terminal, he stopped replying,” she said.
She then did some research and discovered the real James Blunt, 52, was actually touring in Europe at the time.
She blocked the fraudster and reported the con to cops, but said the scam left her heartbroken and humiliated.
“You can’t imagine how much I suffered because of this,” she said. “Who doesn’t fall in love, right?”
Read the full article here
