Hollywood Con Queen
Imagine how excited you would be if you were offered a job on an upcoming movie or TV show. You would likely be even more thrilled if you were offered that job by a high-profile Hollywood exec. It would be like all your Christmases had come at once.
But what if you were being lied to? What if you were encouraged to fly halfway around the world only to discover the job you had been offered didn’t exist? This was the situation for the victims of the “Hollywood Con Queen,” the subject of a new documentary on Apple TV+.
This mysterious figure targeted entertainment industry gig workers and lured them to Jakarta, Indonesia, with the promise of work on films and television shows. But these work offers were non-existent. They were lies orchestrated by the “Con Queen,” a man named Hargobind Tahilramani.
In this article, we take a brief look at this con artist’s crimes and ask the question: Where is Hargobind Tahilramani now?
Who is Hargobind Tahilramani?
Hargobind Tahilramani is an Indonesian man who stole the identity of well-known female producers, including Kathleen Kennedy and Amy Pang, to lure unwitting victims to Indonesia with the promise of work in the entertainment industry.
After convincing his victims to pay for their own flights, he would then pressure them to pay exorbitant expenses with the promise of reimbursement.
Tahilramani was very convincing. He would alter his voice to sound like female film execs to fool entertainment professionals, such as screenwriters, actors, and photographers.
One victim of Tahilramani’s was an actor and writer named Eoin O’Brien. He was left out of pocket by around $15,000 after he was contacted by Tahilramani who was claiming to be Hollywood producer Deborah Snyder. He was convinced he was in the running for a part in a DC Justice League movie and was coerced by the con queen into performing simulated sex acts over Skype in the guise of an audition. (source)
O’Brien then flew out to Jakarta at his own expense and handed over thousands of dollars for ‘shooting permits.’ After several days of being driven around to remote locations, he realised he had been scammed.
There are many other victims of Tahilramani, each one fooled into thinking their big break in Hollywood was almost upon them. But like O’Brien, their dreams were shattered.
The Hollywood scam wasn’t Tahilramani’s first crime. He had already served prison time for embezzlement and making a bomb hoax.
Following his release from prison in 2011, he took on jobs as a tour guide and food blogger and changed his name to Gobind Lal Tahil, which is the name he was going under when he was eventually unmasked.
What happened to Hargobind Tahilramani?
Hargobind Tahilramani scammed more than 300 victims between 2013 and 2020. Following an FBI investigation, he was arrested on November 25 2020 in a hotel in Manchester in the UK, where he was allegedly claiming to be a writer for Netflix. (source)
Following his arrest, Tahilramani was put in a UK prison, where he has been languishing ever since awaiting extradition from the UK to the US.
At the extradition proceedings in 2022, Tahilramani said he lived a sham life because he is gay. He also claimed that he was a victim of a conspiracy by American prosecutors.
We’re not sure if that latter claim is true. After all, how can one believe the words of a fraudster?
You can find out more about Hargobind Tahilramani and his victims in the Apple TV+ series Hollywood Con Queen which is streaming from May 8, 2024.
What do you think about the ‘Hollywood Con Queen’? Let us know in the comments below.
A criminal is a criminal.