'Furious' pensioner falls victim to Dr Chris Brown love scam as fraudsters use AI to trick her out of $780

Daily Mail​

11-06-2025

A New Zealand grandmother is the latest victim to be targeted by a love scam using AI-generated videos and images of Dr Chris Brown.
Daana Tomlin, 73, was conned out of $786 when she was tricked into believing she had struck up a five-year long online romance with the 46-year-old Bondi Vet star.
The fraudsters used emotionally manipulative messages to convince the pensioner she was in a romantic relationship with the star, reported The Daily Telegraph.
They first made contact with a 'cheeky message' on Facebook while posing as Chris, before moving Daana to Telegram and WhatsApp to continue the manipulation.
Daana, a semi-retired naturopath from Dunedin, said she was conned into sending the scammers almost $800 through gift cards, Apple cards and PayPal.
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The hoaxers used sophisticated AI-generated videos of Chris to speak to Daana and convince her to hand over her cash.
'Whenever I became suspicious and tried to end contact, he'd get angry and send me a video saying he was real. It certainly sounded and looked like him,' she said.
'I'm furious that it's not the real Chris Brown, I paid a few hundred dollars for a meet and greet at New Zealand airport through Apple Cards and gift cards.'
However, when Chris was a no-show at the airport, Daana asked security for help and they said 'they had not seen him'.
Daana said she 'feels silly and embarrassed' for believing it was real, adding the fake Chris would call her 'his wife' and rang 'for five years at 5.30 every morning'.
'What the scammer did was evil, it was devious, exploitative and invasive,' said Daana, who was married for 19 years and has a grown son.
She added she 'thought a need was being met' in her and didn't discover she was being scammed until her support worker discovered the PayPal payments.
The fraudster had claimed they bought Daana a car as a present, but demanded she send several hundred dollars through PayPal to pay for the registration.
Daana isn't the first to fall victim to the sophisticated and long-running love scam.
Last month it was reported UK pensioner Lisa Nock was also conned out of her life savings after falling for the same AI scam.
The 44-year-old from Staffordshire was browsing Instagram in 2022 when a fake account posing as Chris bombarded her with direct messages.
Lisa admitted she was lonely and vulnerable at the time after losing her partner in a car crash, and had been left disabled in another traffic accident.
But the avid animal lover said her life changed and she was delighted when the TV star said he wanted to meet her in England.
'I was chuffed that Chris Brown had messaged me, I'm a huge fan and hoped this might be our chance to meet,' Lisa told the Daily Telegraph at the time.
The surprise messages began a chain of correspondence that spanned two-and-a-half years, but the scammers soon told her Chris needed money to visit her.
They moved the conversation to WhatsApp and continued to groom her, using artificial intelligence to convince her she was in a romantic relationship with him.
'After a few months, I admit I was enamoured. He told me he loved me and wanted us to marry – of course I said no, and asked if it was a scam,' Lisa said.
She tried calling the WhatsApp number, but her attempts were blocked.
Scammers then used a sophisticated AI program to call Lisa via the encrypted messaging app Telegram.
An AI-generated version of Chris said he hoped the call had cleared her doubts.
The conmen also used AI image generators to create 'photos' of the TV doctor and shared them with Lisa, a volunteer English and drama teacher.
She lives off just $1246 each month from her UK pension, two thirds of which she pays to her parents in rent.
The remaining $400 however ended up being sent to the cruel scammers each month for almost three years.
Lisa sent the money through gift cards, Bitcoin and Crypto information.
'I was vulnerable and wanted to believe we could be friends, we both love animals, I had lost my partner in a car crash a few years ago,' she said.
Lisa finally realised it was all fake when the conmen posed as Chris' 'management' team and told her he had been kidnapped, before demanding $40 million.
Lisa has now reported the scam to British police.