‘HOLLYWOOD CON QUEEN’: WHAT HAPPENED TO HARGOBIND PUNJABI TAHILRAMANI?

Hollywood is a place where dreams can come true, so when a series of actors, screenwriters and photographers were contacted and offered jobs by the likes of Christopher Nolan, Deborah Snyder, Wendi Deng Murdoch or producer Amy Pascal, it almost seemed too good to be true. It was.

Over the course of several years from 2013, hundreds of entertainment industry workers and social media influencers were targeted by a scammer known as the Hollywood Con Queen, who lured victims to Indonesia with the promise of fake work trips, only to con them out of sizeable amounts of their money by confusing them on arrival, then disappearing altogether. The story first broke in the mainstream press in 2018, when The Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Johnson wrote a splash uncovering the shady goings-on, detailing some of the many cases where people were catfished into giving up thousands of dollars to the con-artist. But at that time, there was no clue as to who this mystery woman was, despite many voice recordings of her on the phone and many email chains.

However, a new Apple TV+ documentary, Hollywood Con Queen, featuring Johnson, alleges the scammer is an Indonesian man called Hargobind Punjabi Tahilramani. As the series tells the story in full, we ask: what happened to Tahilramani after he was arrested?

The backstory

In one of the most complex scam campaigns the authorities have seen, over the course of seven years the scammer supposedly spent almost every waking hour constructing elaborate scams purporting to (mainly) be an accomplished women in positions of high power and influence in Hollywood and high society. They targeted influencers and photographers asking them to come and work on a project in Asia with Wendi Deng Murdoch, and asked cinematographers to come and direct a Netflix series in Indonesia. Other hair and makeup artists were offered jobs in glamorous locations, while another mark was promised a job working on the Tom Cruise movie filmed in outer space.

Even stunt men and ex-military men were targeted. One was asked to fly out to Asia – all victims paid for their own flights, visas and permits, on the promise they could claim the money back in expenses on arrival – as a private equity billionaire was pulling together a super security team, while another was told he would be cast in the latest Indiana Jones movie. Several men were coerced into online camera calls of a sexual nature. What they all had in common was that the scammer had been incredibly thorough in researching their many marks, and tailoring and manipulating the scam specifically so it would have been of interest to the victims.

The nature of it also meant people were embarrassed to reveal they’d lost their life savings in a scam, especially in an industry where appearance and reputation means everything. Many stayed quiet. Those who did go to the police or the FBI, were fobbed off, despite some people voicing that it could have been part of a bigger campaign. In the case of one person, according to The Hollywood Reporter “neither showed interest”.

How was Tahilramani caught?

Nicoletta Kotsianas, a New Jersey private investigator at K2, came onto the case after hearing several similar stories of people being conned by somebody pretending to be Hollywood exec, only to get fleeced in Indonesia. According to The Guardian, she spent years gathering anecdotes and studying digital fingerprints and myriad finsta accounts. Through this work, she managed to connect Tahilramani, who had several online identities, but no true online trace of himself. Tahilramani was known to authorities for previous criminal behaviour, and she found he had spent time in prison for calling in a bomb threat to the US Embassy in Indonesia, served time for fraud and had even pretended to be an irate Cate Blanchett calling on his behalf when he’d been kicked off his college debate team for plagiarism. He also allegedly plagued the London restaurant scene when he was a food blogger known as PureBytes, setting up photoshoots that he never paid for, and harassing food PRs and restaurant managers when he wasn’t given the attention he demanded.

In 2020, podcast hosts Vanessa Grigoriadas and Josh Dean realised the woman everyone thought they were looking for was possibly a 41-year-old man by the name of Hargobind Punjabi Tahilramani, although he was also known under a host of alias, including Harvey, Gavin Ambani and Gobind Lal Tahil. Through their detective work in the podcast, Chameleon: Hollywood Con Queen managed to link him to scams in the UK food scene and US entertainment world, as detailed in Vanity Fair.

What happened to Tahilramani after he was arrested, and where is he now?

Tahilramani was arrested by the FBI in Manchester in November 2020, where he remained in custody until June 2023, when a UK judge ruled that he could be extradited to face eight charges in an American court, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. His extradition must be formally ordered by the UK’s Secretary of State. As per Variety, in his judgement, District Judge Goldspring said of Tahilramani: “I found him to be dishonest and manipulative and I treat with caution his claim that he has been persecuted by his own family (including being declared dead and being subjected to gay conversion therapy).” Tahilramani has previously said he planned to appeal if extradition was granted.

His legal team have argued he is at greater risk in a U.S. prison due to his sexuality and ethnicity. He has also indicated he would go on hunger strike if forcibly removed to the U.S. The puzzling question still remains as to why Tahilramani allegedly carried out this fraud. As Johnson told The Guardian: “The overall financial damages are estimated to be $1.5m. You can find any number of scams where the totals run up into the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. In this case it was clear from the beginning that it wasn’t really about the money. And so the question then became: what is it about?”

‘Hollywood Con Queen’ streams on Apple TV+ from May 8

2024-05-08T16:30:35Z dg43tfdfdgfd