LOVE SCAM, AT THE HEART OF THE BROUTEUR MYSTERY | M6 | 66 minutes

25%. That’s the percentage of French people who say they’ve experienced at least one romance scam in their lives… That’s almost one in four! Often online, these scams are particularly well-honed. Fake profiles, artificial intelligence to change your appearance, voice-tampering applications, falsified documents and fake bank accounts… Gone are the days of old-fashioned scamming techniques; today’s victims have to deal with experts. Some lose astronomical sums and are often abandoned by their loved ones

The crooks, on the other hand, line their pockets and are difficult to track down, if not out of reach. The vast majority of them operate far from France: in Abidjan, the world capital of “brouteurs”! There, because of the crisis and the lack of alternatives, sentimental scams are a philosophy inculcated from an early age. Fortunately, in France, some people have decided to take up the cause of “scammer hunting” and make the defense of victims their fight. Here’s a look at the scourge of scam artists.