A Bruno Mars Catfish Seduced a Texas Woman Over Instagram and Scammed Her Out of $100k

When certain fans say that they’d do anything for their favorite celebrity, we usually assume they mean, in a manner of speaking. But in the case of one Bruno Mars fan, that sentiment couldn’t be more serious.

Recently, a 63-year-old Texas woman was swindled out of $100,000 by a catfish pretending to be Bruno Mars.

Yeah, folks. We’re serious. According to Houston authorities, an unnamed Texas woman sent multiple checks to her online lover–whom she believed to be Grammy-award-winning, multi-platinum artist, Bruno Mars.

According to legal documents, the woman created an Instagram page in 2018 in order to find “companionship”. She was soon thereafter contacted by another Instagram user who claimed to be Bruno Mars. The fraudster sent the woman what she believed was ample evidence–multiple texts and photos that “proved” he was on tour.

According to the Texas woman, she believed that her and Mars had “fallen in love” and developed a “meaningful relationship.” According to court documents, the Mars impersonator even promised to quit his 24k tour in order to be with her.

Once Catfish Bruno gained the woman’s trust, he asked her for $100,000 for “tour expenses.” And the woman complied.

First, the Bruno Mars imposter asked her for a $10,000 check via mail. When the woman sent that, the Mars imposter asked for an additional $90,000. The woman wrote that check as well.

The checks were sent to different accounts owned by two men: a man named Chinwendu Azuonwu and his accomplice, Basil Amadi.

It seems that at some point, the woman became aware that she was being scammed and then contacted the authorities. It was then that the police traced the bank accounts back to Azuonwu and Amadi. The men were then arrested and charged with multiple accounts of money laundering.

After the news broke about the Bruno Mars catfish, naturally, the internet had a few questions.

We get that this woman was lonely and in want of companionship, but there’s a line between desperation and delusion.

Many people were caught between pity and disbelief.

We understand that older people aren’t as tech-savvy, but some common sense would’ve told you that a multimillionaire doesn’t need money from a random lady in Texas.

Some people were calling for a deep-dive documentary, MTV “Catfish” style.

Ok, we’d 100% watch this. We want to know how faux-Bruno wooed her, how she convinced herself a rich celebrity needed money, and how she finally became savvy to the scam.

Another question being asked: who has a cool $100k just sitting around?

If she has $100k to give out, she can live perfectly fine.

— Pain ➐ (@RelDyno) February 10, 2021

And how did the scam artists know to target someone so rich?! We hope she the police were able to recover the money, otherwise this woman is going to have a tough retirement.