Original subtitles

When I arrived in Jakarta, I thought,

"This is going to be a great trip."

To be working with directors and actors was really exciting.

The movie was The Master.

I'm like "Oh, my God, that would be a dream come true."

The credentials seemed to check out,

because this was definitely somebody that knew the film industry.

I was told that we had to pay in advance for the airfare,

but that my flights were going to be reimbursed.

We began to suspect that something wasn't quite right.

We were wondering, why do they want these women?

Is this sex trafficking?

What's going on?

Suddenly, things took a very sinister turn,

and I was absolutely terrified.

They were packing guns, and I thought,

"Maybe something's going to happen here."

They lost $10,000, $20,000, $35,000.

I'm like, "Oh, my God."

People were being destroyed, emotionally and financially.

What is striking about this case is how he seemed

to often enjoy humiliating his victims.

I have never been that frightened in my whole life.

I really did think that

it was going to come to an end.

Heather is a make-up artist in the film industry,

working out of London.

I'm quite proud of what I've done, coming up in the industry.

Done some short films,

some action movies.

There's lots and lots of travel

and learning, and some bad experiences, too.

But you kind of just dust yourself off,

and you get on with it.

It's been a really fun, challenging ride.

In 2016, Heather receives an enquiry

about a possible new job working on a film

starring martial arts icon Donnie Yen.

So, there I was in my hammock, in Crete,

and my agent forwarded me the email,

which had come from a woman called Leslie.

She was a female Chinese executive from

a film company called Huaxia.

My agent had done some due diligence

and found that it was a company that existed.

And the prospectus that came through

was about a film called The Master,

which was a martial arts fantasy film set in Asia.

There was a good budget,

it was quite well-organised,

and more so than some jobs I've done.

And it was really exciting.

Leslie then calls Heather

and tells her she's looking for someone to run the entire

make-up department on the multimillion-dollar film.

In hair and make-up, on film and TV,

you have to work your way up to the head of department,

and I hadn't quite worked my way up there yet.

So, to be given the opportunity to be working

with director and the producers,

and the actors, collaborating on their looks and breaking down

the script - it was a dream, you know,

to get to the top of my game.

Leslie then asks Heather to fly out to Jakarta

to meet her and the other producers.

She also asks her to visit and photograph locations for the film -

a highly unusual request for a make-up artist,

but one that Heather feels unable to turn down.

There are times in our industry when it is quite frightening,

because you don't know where your next pay cheque is coming from.

And they sold it as a bit like a paid interview.

But the way she pitched it to me

was that I was a shoo-in,

that there wasn't anyone else vying for this job,

and meeting them was a formality.

I was told by Leslie that the Chinese film companies

don't work the same way as British ones do.

So, we had to pay in advance for the airfare,

but that my flights were going to be reimbursed.

Speaking to Leslie on the phone,

I felt like everything was in hand.

She was quite assertive, but warm at the same time.

She knew what she was talking about.

Any questions I had, she had the answer.

It was a great opportunity for me.

I just was so excited to get out there and do it.

Jakarta, here I come.

But what Heather is being told,

she later finds out, isn't true.

She isn't the only person being approached by Leslie

about work in Jakarta.

Jane works at an agency which represents other make-up artists

in the film industry.

One morning, the phone rang,

and the producer on the end of the line was asking

if we'd received her email.

She was crewing up for a big job.

Jane refers Leslie to senior agent, Mandi.

Our first encounter was a little bit on the back foot.

It sort of started off with an air of,

"Oh, gosh this person is a little bit...demanding."

The credentials seemed to check out,

because this was definitely somebody that knew the industry.

But she'd chosen a list of people that didn't...

It just didn't seem right for what the project was.

She went through a very wide range of people and experience,

and ages, and genders.

But the ones that Leslie picked out

were the younger, female new talent.

So, that was, for me, a little bit strange.

Leslie tells Mandi there is a $100,000 salary on offer

for the suitable candidate.

An overall wage of $100,000 on a big project wouldn't be shocking.

But for new talent, it's unheard of,

for a shoot of that kind.

It was too high.

I remember saying to Jane,

"If it looks too good to be true,

"it is too good to be true."

Mandi began to suspect that something wasn't quite right.

She started to get more and more insistent

and demanding about who we sent.

Something was unusual about it only being women,

and being at the beginning of their career.

So, we were wondering, why do they want these women?

I said, "Look, we've gotta keep her talking until we know,

"like, what she wants."

I'm very protective, as an agent, over the artists.

And I felt concerned that there was potential harm happening.

We knew it was a scam.

We became really obsessed with finding out what she was doing

and who she was.

Maybe she wants to lure them into Jakarta.

I emailed probably about 6-7 different agents to say,

"Look, if you hear from this production,

"please be careful.

"I don't know what it is."

Is this sex trafficking?

Is it drugs?

Like, what's going on?

After a telephone interview with movie producer Leslie,

make-up artist Heather has travelled to Jakarta,

lured by the prospect of working

with martial arts superstar Donnie Yen.

I had an itinerary sent to me,

so I knew there'd be a driver waiting for me

with my name on a board - which there was.

I'd been asked to bring $1,200 cash,

to pay the driver who was going to be with me for the three days,

driving me around Jakarta.

The following morning, the driver takes Heather on

a four-hour journey through the unfamiliar city.

My itinerary led me to believe that

the first meeting was going to be with Leslie,

some producer, a director.

I arrived expecting to find a sort of temple,

or some kind of historical building.

But when I did arrive, it was

a weird sort of Austrian theme park,

and there were a lot of Indonesian tourists wearing lederhosen.

It was very odd.

And also, there were no people there to meet me.

So, I realise at this point, it's not all as it should be.

Something wasn't quite right.

I needed to speak to Leslie quite urgently,

as she'd not been in touch with me yet.

And Leslie finally gets in touch.

She definitely made me feel like it was nothing to worry about,

that she'd be at the next location.

I just missed her because of the traffic.

So, I thought, ooh, I better not overreact,

just in case I jeopardise the relationship or something.

HE SPEAKS IN INDONIESIAN

Despite Leslie's assurances,

she and the other producers also fail to show up at

the next location Heather visits.

After waiting around and not meeting anyone at the second location,

I was absolutely raging,

because I'd been buggering around for hours,

you know, not doing anything.

WOMAN: Are you ready to play?

I go back to see the driver.

He started to deny that he could speak or understand English,

which...was weird.

Heather's visit then takes a more puzzling turn.

When I got to the information desk,

there was a lady there working who told me that she'd met another lady

that was also from England

who was interviewing for the same job.

I was a little bit surprised

to find out that there was someone else out there,

especially as I was told that there wasn't anyone else competing

for the job.

And I was quite interested to know who this was.

So, her name was Anna.

And I was like, "Who's this Anna person?"

Anna is also a make-up artist.

Following a similar job offer from Leslie,

she is making her second trip to Jakarta.

So, when Leslie, she contacted me,

she told the movie was The Master,

and Donnie Yen supposed was to be playing there,

and a lot of, like, Bollywood artists.

And I'm like, "Oh, my God.

"Wow, that would be a dream come true."

Like Heather, Leslie has asked Anna to cover the costs of

her trips to Jakarta and to invoice her at a later date.

She has also asked Anna to pay another driver $1,200

to take her to locations around the city.

I literally have to pay my own travel.

The driver's supposed to pick me up.

I'm supposed to pay him the fees.

It's a big opportunity - and that reassured me,

and Leslie always said,

"Yes, we will pay you back the money."

And I was very trustful.

The thing is, with these types of crimes,

these kinds of frauds, is the perpetrator

preys on the insecurity of their victim.

Spending money up front and having it reimbursed later

is absolutely normal in the film industry.

If you were to dispute this and say "no",

you'd be seen as trouble, you'd be seen as awkward,

and they'll go with someone else

who was willing to play the game by the rules.

Much like on her first trip to Jakarta,

Leslie fails to show up at several prearranged meetings,

calling Anna each time with a different excuse.

Leslie, she reassured me, I'm going to meet her,

I'm going to meet the assistant,

I'm going to meet the producer.

I'm like "OK, brilliant, amazing. Let's do it."

But every single time, something was coming up.

And I was constantly messaging her, messaging her.

So, I was just stuck there and thinking,

"What am I supposed to do?"

This scam is unique.

Quite often, scams are international,

but actually getting the victims to move to a different country,

physically get them to drive around within that country,

this shows quite clearly that it's beyond the financial -

there's this power play going on, as well.

And that's part of the payoff for the perpetrator.

When I was at the second location,

I think my competitive nature,

made me eager to compete with

the person who had also been sent information for this job

that I was supposedly a shoo-in for.

And so, at this point, I kind of became...

..more competitive than concerned.

But after a few hours, I went back to the driver,

because no-one had come to meet me,

and I was a bit suspicious at that point.

It was a bit of a weird realisation

that something wasn't quite right.

So, I ask the driver, "Where is everybody?"

And he basically says, "Oh, no, we've missed the meeting,

"we've missed the meeting."

At which point, I got bit annoyed and sort of freaked out.

I was angry. I told the driver to take me back to my hotel.

So, I put the address of the hotel into my Waze app,

because I had no idea where I was.

As we were driving,

I realised that we're not going towards my hotel.

We're getting further away from my hotel.

We were in a very busy part of town

that was not particularly safe-looking.

Suddenly, things took a very sinister turn.

The driver was getting extremely anxious.

I was beginning to talk to him much louder,

and I think I was crying at that point.

My body starts to react, and I start, like, breathing faster,

and I start to realise that something's really wrong here.

And I was absolutely terrified at this point.

I didn't know what was going to happen.

And of course, all the worst things come into your mind in that moment.

I start imagining being gang-raped

or being murdered, or having someone traffic me.

I just have never been that frightened in my whole life.

I really did think that it was going to come to an end at that point.

I can 100% honestly say that

I was fully prepared to die jumping out of a moving car,

rather than get raped or murdered.

The driver was talking faster and faster on the phone.

And in my mind, I was imagining him speaking to my abductors

and telling them that I was starting to catch on,

and that I knew what was going on,

and he was trying to figure out a plan.

Heather manages to secretly record the driver's conversation

and sends it to a friend who speaks Indonesian.

I just held down the record button on WhatsApp,

because I wanted to know what he was saying

to who he was speaking.

And they came back quite quickly

and said that he was just talking about another job,

and he was taking a roundabout route because the traffic was really bad.

I still didn't 100% believe what they were saying.

But at that point, I could see I was getting back

closer to the hotel, and just felt immense relief.

But when Heather returns to the hotel,

her relief is short-lived.

I go up to my room, have a shower,

and fire up my laptop...

..and find my Facebook message from my friend in Asia

who knows Donnie Yen's PA,

and...with a bombshell saying that, as far as he was aware,

it was not a real film.

So, it's all kind of crashing down on me at this point,

that this is a huge lie.

I'm certain that something's wrong.

And I just want to get home now.

Thankfully, my friend in England had contacted the consulate...

..at that point, the phone rang.

The consulate were really concerned,

and they tell me, immediately,

put my passport in my bra, pack my bags,

and get out of this hotel

and get to the airport as fast as I possibly can.

Going through airport security was absolutely terrifying.

I also hadn't slept in three days.

I was exhausted, paranoid.

I was afraid that they were still going to have

some way of getting to me.

I didn't know if they were trying to kill,

or if they were trying to put drugs in my bag.

And then, I look down,

my phone is ringing, and it's Leslie.

And she doesn't stop.

She keeps ringing and ringing, and ringing relentlessly.

She obviously realises that I've left the hotel

without letting them know.

And eventually, I get to the gate,

and I get on the plane.

That was me leaving Jakarta.

On the flight home,

Heather tries to make sense of what's happened.

There'd been so many weird things going on that day,

but the only money I'd hand handed over was to the driver.

But surely, this wasn't why they got me out there

to pay $1,000 to someone?

That just seemed absolutely ludicrous.

There was so much effort put into this whole trip,

but so little gain.

What Heather doesn't know is that she is just one of many people

who believe they have fallen victim to an elaborate scam

that will rock some of the most powerful people in Hollywood.

I had no idea the scale of the scam that had been going on.

I was absolutely gobsmacked

that the victims are in the hundreds, at least.

Make-up artist Heather has fled Jakarta.

After returning to London,

her agent threatens to go to the police

unless Leslie contacts them.

So, Leslie then called my agents,

and they had the foresight to record the call.

PHONE RINGS

Hello?

What we'd like to know, Leslie, is where's our money,

and why haven't you been in touch with us since Heather

was out in Jakarta?

Leslie, at this point, was pushing the blame on to me,

questioning why I'd run away from Indonesia,

and what my problem was,

and making it all out that I was some crazy person,

having left in the middle of the night, you know?

When Heather called us,

and you'd have to give us a chance to speak to, as well,

we contacted Heather, we had an appointment.

She ran away from the hotel, and she went to the airport

without informing, and we'd already gone halfway.

Why was there no information at all,

and why couldn't you clarify that over an email?

We were all trying to figure out what the hell had gone on.

We still didn't know what the scam was.

But we hadn't received the money back that she'd said

she was going to pay back.

Up to this point, it was about £8,000,

including my wages, the flights,

the money I've given the driver.

And, yeah, we were going to try and get that money back.

Listen, listen, I will tell them to sort it by Wednesday,

and then, everything - once it's solved,

I want you to contact me and tell me what went wrong.

But I'll give you my word, it will be solved by Wednesday next week.

We'd had this proof of payment come through,

but none of the money had actually hit our accounts.

It was a hard pill to swallow.

But we had to realise that money wasn't coming back.

Now back in London,

fellow make-up artist Anna has also been unable to recover

the money she's owed by Leslie.

When I came back to England, the first thing I did,

I put my invoice immediately,

because I know it can take 30 days to be paid.

Leslie always said, "Yes, we will pay you back the money,

"pay you back the money."

And I was chasing about this.

"Where is the money? Where's the money?

"You're supposed to pay me back."

And I start putting all my puzzles together.

And I was just speechless.

I lost, on those two trips,

with the plane, expenses,

with the money that I gave to the driver two times,

er, £6,500.

It's a lot of money.

What puzzles Anna and Heather is that,

while they have personally lost several thousand pounds

on trips to Jakarta, only a relatively small slice of that

could have made its way to the scammers.

People would ask me, like, "So, what did they get from you?"

And I was like, "Well, three days of my life and grey hairs,"

you know? And it was hard to quantify what they gained

out of this, apart from $1,000.

It was a lot of effort to go through for just $1,000.

It seems that the biggest part of the scam is money to the driver.

They'd paid permit fees,

they paid for flights, they paid accommodation.

They get a fake form that they fill in to be reimbursed -

and they never get reimbursed.

But I still couldn't really understand the how elaborate

the scam was for what seemed like such a small return.

Things becomes clearer when Mandi is interviewed about the scam

in trade magazine The Hollywood Reporter.

The piece in The Hollywood Reporter obviously reached quite a lot

of people who either knew people,

or were themselves victims of the scam.

The momentum seemed to grow and grow.

After Mandi had done the article,

we started to realise that it was much bigger than

the little part that we'd been involved in.

People started emailing me,

friends who had friends who'd been scammed.

People in South Africa, Spain, Germany, America.

You know, it was all the same kind of people in the same situation

as I was in - slightly vulnerable,

ready to make the leap into the next phase of their career,

you know, thinking this was a great opportunity -

and feeling immense amounts of shame,

immense amounts of shame at having been scammed.

It seems almost everyone has been subjected to the same scam,

being asked to cover their expenses,

and then, pay cash for drivers or film permits,

which then makes its way to the perpetrator.

With this fraud, it's particularly interesting because the perpetrator

never asks directly for money.

So, any of those alarm bells that you'd normally have around scams

don't go off.

And that's how they get away with it for so long.

As more victims come forward, the small cash payments in Jakarta

begin to add up to a something big.

It seems that whoever is behind this

is targeting all kinds of industry professionals.

There's actors, directors, screenwriters.

As we understood the scale of the scam,

it became absolutely mind-blowing,

and it began to make more sense that

so many people had been caught up in it,

and that so many people given over their money.

I was very surprised how many people were involved in this scam.

And they lost $10,000,

$20,000, $35,000.

I'm like, "Oh, my God!"

What's happened is that these victims' hopes and dreams

are used as a bait.

And the criminal here is drawing them in with that,

and then, dashing their dreams, taking their money,

and leaving them vulnerable.

And this might suggest that that fear and having that visceral

reaction from a victim is part of the gain,

as well as the financial gain.

It was clearly becoming not only just like a bigger crime,

but people were being destroyed emotionally and financially.

Many of the victims report being contacted by both male

and female film producers.

All the various victims had been seemingly spoken to

by different people because they, you know,

they had different accents, they had Asian voices, American,

all kinds of different people.

As more and more people were coming out of the woodwork,

it seemed like there was something more organised about it,

and we were convinced that it was a gang.

In 2019, Byron, an actor and stunt coordinator,

is approached about possible work on an action film.

One day, I'd just got home from the gym,

and an email popped up about a production that was

taking place in Indonesia,

and it was from a production company in the USA,

and the guy's name was David Ready, a top producer.

And so, I thought,

"Yeah, it could be a good opportunity here."

When I was on the phone with David,

he had a Queens, New York accent.

Very brash, very straight to the point.

And he said to me, when could I come to Jakarta?

And next thing I knew, my flight was booked,

and I was flying.

In Jakarta, David gets in touch

to say he's set up a video call for Byron to meet well-known

Hollywood casting director, Sarah Finn.

When David told me Sarah Finn was doing the casting,

I thought, "Wow! That's a good thing for me,"

because she does Star Wars, she does all the Marvel stuff.

For me to get that kind of casting director

was a dream, to be honest with you.

So, yeah, it was exciting.

The video call takes place when Byron is alone in his hotel room.

I saw Sarah briefly, and then...

..a wine glass in front of a camera like this,

and kind of a bob haircut.

And then, it went off.

And then, I was thinking, "What's going on here," you know?

Anyway, we got talking, and she was quite flirtatious,

calling me "darling, sweetheart," all this kind of stuff.

And she said, would I cast with my shirt off?

And I said, "No, I'm not into that, you know?

"It's not my thing."

When she knew I didn't want to show my body and stuff,

she was very apologetic.

She said, "I hope you don't feel bad about me."

And I thought, "Well, I do, deep down,

"but I ain't gonna tell you that right now cos I want the job."

Byron is just one of many male victims to have fallen prey

to this kind of psychological intimidation.

Others were duped into going further.

Some of the victims were tricked or coerced into performing

acts of a sexual nature.

And it seemed there were fears of blackmail, as well.

If you've done something that you're embarrassed about,

those intimate videos or phone calls,

that's going to potentially ruin your reputation,

if that comes out, and this person has that over them.

The type of behaviours that we can see here

shows a level of narcissism.

It's being able to exercise power over individuals

and believing that you can do that without getting caught.

Byron's concerns continue to escalate

when he visits possible locations for stunt sequences for the film.

One of the locations I went to was in this jungle area.

Middle of nowhere. It took hours to get there.

At that point, I was a bit paranoid

about being stuck in the jungle, to be honest.

And then, there was two motorcycle guys who turned up,

and were basically watching me and the driver.

Yeah, I got a bad vibe from them,

because they're like little street gangsters, to be honest.

They never took the helmets off,

and I thought, in the back of their jeans,

it looked like they were packing guns.

And I thought...

HE SIGHS

..maybe something's going to happen here.

Byron senses the motorcyclists have been sent to watch him.

The two motorcycle guys were just, like, watching.

And I got a call from David,

and...I basically lost the plot.

I got very angry and I said,

"you know, I'm going to fly home tomorrow.

"I'm going to go back home, and that's it."

And then, he turned on me on the phone.

It was like...a demon.

So, I got in the car, back to the hotel.

While Byron is in Jakarta,

his partner contacts him with news of the scam.

I read some of these articles about the permits...

..the locations, the drivers.

It was me, man. It was me.

I was thinking, "What a mug.

"What an idiot I've been."

I went and got a small rucksack,

and basically got the hell out of there.

After returning home,

Byron receives another call from David.

I picked up the phone, and I said to him,

"You've got issues, you need to see a doctor, mate."

You know, and he went mental!

His voice changed.

It's like speaking to somebody with 3-4 different personalities.

And he said to me, "Byron, you can't touch me."

And he said, "I know people all around the world.

"I can send some people round your place tonight,

"and they'll shoot you dead."

I've never really experienced that type of paranoia in my life.

You feel naked.

You know, they know everything about you.

I had to change my bank details, change my passport.

I had to change everything.

It becomes clear that the real David Ready and Sarah Finn

haven't been in contact with Byron.

And they aren't the only Hollywood executives

that have been impersonated.

Among the women allegedly impersonated were Kathleen Kennedy,

the head of Lucasfilm,

and the former Paramount boss, Sherry Lansing.

These are big players in the Hollywood scene.

They are big names.

And it would've infuriated them that they had been impersonated

by this con artist.

Private investigators then look into the scam

and discover that hundreds more people across the world

claim to have fallen victim to it.

I was shocked by how big it was.

And probably 60% of some of the people I've worked

had all been scammed,

but they were too proud to say anything.

PHONE VIBRATES

A huge number of people were affected by this scam.

And this had been going on for seven years.

It was a scam of an absolutely massive scale.

Private investigators have uncovered hundreds of people

who believe they have fallen victim to a fake film scam.

The story started to grow and grow,

and eventually, it got its own name.

It was called the Hollywood Con Queen.

And it sort of had a life of its own.

It soon became apparent that whoever was behind this scam

was very good at covering their tracks digitally.

So, the private investigators were hitting a lot of dead ends,

because this scammer, or scammers

had just been extremely clever at eliminating any evidence.

The investigation finally progresses

when a scriptwriter called Greg Mandarano

comes forward as a victim.

Greg travelled to Indonesia six times.

It was for research for a big sci-fi movie.

And, on one of those trips, he came face-to-face with

the person who had invited him to Indonesia.

And luckily, Greg managed to get hold of a scan

of this person's passport.

Greg managed to find this passport by looking at

the travel agent that was used by the Hollywood Con Queen.

And on the passport was the name of a man,

Gobind Lal Tahil.

This was a massive breakthrough.

So, people start to do some digging on the name Gobind Lal,

and they quickly established that the passport has a fake name

and fake information on it.

The private detectives do a deep dive into the fake identity

of Gobind Lal Tahil.

Digital investigators start looking into the name Gobind Lal,

and there's an article in a media trade magazine

that links the name Gobind Lal

to an Indonesian con artist, Rudy Sutopo.

The private investigators discover

that Gobind Lal had served time in an Indonesian prison

with Rudy Sutopo.

So, as a result of this finding,

the private investigators were able to reach out to the prison wardens,

who were able to give them the real name for Gobind Lal.

And that person was actually called Hargobind Tahilramani.

The investigators believe Hargobind alone is behind all the scam calls,

impersonating both men and women like Leslie.

News of the discovery spreads through the film industry.

When we learned that Leslie was a man...

..it just blew our minds.

Jane was just like, shrieking,

"Oh, my God, Leslie's a man!

"Leslie's a man!" SHE CHUCKLES

And we were totally blown away by that piece of information.

He was impersonating all of them.

And he was bloody good at it. He was so good at it.

I mean, that's skill, man.

I mean, it must take years

to pull these accents off.

The perpetrator sounded like many different people.

And the fact it's one person performing all of this,

rather than a serious organised criminal network,

makes this case absolutely extraordinary.

Despite the apparent scale of the scam,

police and US federal authorities

appear reluctant to help track down the perpetrator.

Eventually, the FBI did get involved -

and this was a huge relief because, up until this point,

no-one really wanted to do anything.

Forensic analysis of the Con Queen's digital trail

leads authorities to the UK.

This was a huge moment, because now,

we have a real name and a real person,

and we possibly know where they are.

According to his social media, he has actually been based in London

for the past five years.

Finding out that he was in the UK felt particularly sinister,

because whenever I think of scammers,

I always think of, you know,

someone on the other side of the world.

So, when I found out that it was a man,

and it was someone who lived in this country I was,

I felt really - I don't know why,

but I felt more violated than I had before.

In November 2020,

FBI agents working with British police track Hargobind

to a hotel in Manchester.

He's arrested in the early hours of the morning.

And this arrest was the culmination

of a multi-jurisdiction investigation that had gone on

for over a year.

When they finally arrested Hargobind,

it was a jaw-dropping moment.

You just couldn't believe that he was here,

and we'd been talking to someone on our doorstep.

After he was arrested, I was extremely relieved.

It was then a waiting game.

BYRON: When I learned he got arrested,

I was pretty happy, to be honest.

The scam destroyed some people's lives.

And people are still paying for it today.

Prosecutors believe that, over a seven-year period,

some 500 victims lost around $2 million

as a result of the Con Queen scam.

How much made its way to the perpetrator

via a network of drivers and fixers remains unclear.

The particularly alarming part for me was the preying on

the optimistic people at the beginning of their career,

and the vulnerability of the prey that felt really disturbing to me,

that actually, it's that part of your career

where you're ambitious and hopeful.

So, it feels particularly mean.

Following his arrest,

Hargobind appears at a court in central London

where he denies all charges, claiming he was a victim of

a conspiracy created by US government officials.

The offences include conspiracy to commit wire fraud

and two counts of wire fraud.

Each of those alone carry a 20-year maximum prison sentence.

He's also facing five counts of aggravated identity theft.

Once he was arrested, naturally, journalists wanted to find out

more about his background.

So, it's reported that he studied

in lots of different colleges in California.

Apparently, he was known as Harvey in the US,

and was very gifted at impersonations,

at mimicking people.

He was allegedly born into wealth,

and he wanted to follow in his father's footsteps

as a successful producer of Indonesian movies.

This is an extraordinary con.

It's a lot of money.

But for the amount of effort for this fraudster,

it's not actually that much financial gain.

So, it leaves us wondering, really, why are they doing this?

What's behind it? Is it money, or is it something else?

There seems to be a psychological component

whether he is a rejected actor that wanted to prove to Hollywood

that he's amazing at what he does,

that would make sense.

I feel like he did it for a deeper revenge story.

He's been hurt himself, potentially,

and he wants his revenge.

I think it can't be denied that he's a brilliant actor.

And, if that is maybe what he wanted to prove,

I think he's done that.

It could be that he's just sticking

two metaphorical fingers up at Hollywood.

This case was one of the most bizarre cases that I've covered.

What is striking about this case

is how he seemed to often enjoy humiliating his victims.

Playing on the fact that they had these big dreams,

and using that against them.

After fighting attempts to extradite him, in June 2023,

Hargobind is ordered by a British judge to be sent to

the US to face trial.

Obviously, the decision has been made to extradite him.

But he is, of course, innocent until proven guilty.

He hasn't been on trial yet.

Nothing has actually been proven against him in the court of law.

He says he's innocent, and it's not him.

If it's not him,

I...it will be an amazing twist.

But since his arrest,

the scam has never happened again to anyone else.

LAUGHING: It's too much of a coincidence for me.

Whoever the is Con Queen is, many of the victims have been left

financially and emotionally devasted as a result of being scammed.

Others are attempting to rebuild their lives

and fight for the justice they hope will soon come.

The trust issues just grow bigger and bigger.

Trusting people -

maybe they want to manipulate,

maybe they want to use you.

It-It's horrible, and I don't want to feel like this any more.

It's just too painful.

In a way, it helps to know that I wasn't the only person

that fell for the scam.

It helps feel that little bit less shame.

But...

..I've made it kind of my mission to talk about it

as much as possible,

because keeping quiet about these things

is how these things go unnoticed,

and how scammers are successful.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media