Hollywood’s most bizarre scam is being exposed in Apple TV+’s latest docuseries, Hollywood Con Queen. Watch a PopCulture.com clip of the three-part series, streaming now, as veteran investigative journalist Scott Johnson of The Hollywood Reporter tracks down the man he believes to be behind a “perverse psychological game” to lure unsuspecting victims to Indonesia with the promise of a life-changing career opportunity.
Having tracked suspected con artist Hargobind Tahilramani to Manchester using social media clues, Johnson recalls waiting in a hotel lobby for an in-person glimpse of the 41-year-old Indonesian man he believed to be behind the scam dating back to 2015. In the scam, a person posing as high-ranking studio executives like Amy Pascal, former co-chair of Sony Pictures, or Donna Langley, chairperson of Universal Pictures, would call and email Hollywood creatives offering them work.
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While encouraging the scam victims to fly to Indonesia for the non-existent projects, the scammer would cash in on various expenses for which the victims were promised they would eventually be reimbursed, reportedly costing at least 500 victims an estimated $2 million. Some victims also alleged they were coerced into phone sex or other sexually suggestive situations during the docuseries.
In the clip of Johnson’s pursuit of Tahilramani, he reveals that after an hour of trying to look “inconspicuous” and busying himself with his phone, “all of a sudden” he heard the voice he was listening for coming out of the elevator. “I just knew right away that it was him,” the journalist recalls.
The footage Johnson was taking in that moment then pauses and zooms in on Tahilramani as he exits the hotel onto the streets of Manchester. “And so I followed him,” Johnson remembers. “As soon as I made my way into the street, there [were] a lot of buses, so I was kind of trying to keep an eye on him. But then to my dismay, he was actually headed into the entrance of the giant mall.”
With “hundreds and hundreds” of people swirling around the Arndale mall, Johnson quickly lost his target. “So I just spent the next two hours or so just circling,” he reveals. “And I couldn’t find him anywhere.”
Based on Johnson’s reporting and his book, Hollywood Con Queen: The Hunt for an Evil Genius, the three-part docuseries from Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Chris Smith (Tiger King, Fyre, 100 Foot Wave) explores the shocking story behind one of Hollywood’s biggest scams.
In 2020, Tahilramani was arrested in England, according to Variety, which reported that in June 2023, a U.K. judge ruled the alleged scammer would be extradited to the U.S. to face charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
Get the full story with Hollywood Con Queen, streaming now on Apple TV+.
