Friday, December 4, 2020

Here's the guy that was tricking people into flying to Indonesia to work on non-existent movies

Hollywood Reporter:

Beginning as early as 2015 and continuing largely unimpeded for the next five years, [he] allegedly lured scores of victims into a series of impersonation scams. ... Highly skilled with accents and voices, [he] allegedly passed himself off as several powerful female executives.

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[He allegedly] used these personas to convince people building their careers in the creative arts to travel to Indonesia on the promise of work. Once there, the marks paid cash for logistical services such as driving and fixing, with the promise of reimbursement on the backend. The projects never materialized and the money vanished.

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By 2017, he was impersonating former Sony chair Amy Pascal, Star Wars producer Kathleen Kennedy and former Paramount boss Sherry Lansing.In addition to Hollywood notables, [he] also sought out highly visible people in other areas, including media, politics and international business. He duped his marks into believing he was Wendi Murdoch

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By late last year, before the coronavirus pandemic shut down global travel, he was still luring people to Indonesia by successfully impersonating [a] prominent Singapore business magnate