British court agrees to extradite the “Hollywood fraud queen” to the United States
On Tuesday, the British judiciary gave the green light to extradite the United States the “Queen of Hollywood Fraud”, who is in fact an Indonesian man named Hargobind Tahilramani, who is accused of obtaining hundreds of thousands of dollars from personalities in the world of cinema by impersonating influential women in Hollywood.
According to Agence France-Presse, Hargobind Tahilramani, who is proficient in imitating female voices and accents, was accused of fraudulently obtaining about $ 1 million from more than 300 film workers, including actors, screenwriters and photographers, between 2013 and 2020.
The Indonesian man was arrested in 2020 in England after being convicted by a California court in November 2019.
Among the women whom Tahilramani impersonated are Caitlin Kennedy, director of Lucasfilm (producing the “Star Wars” series, for example), Amy Pascal, former president of “Sony Pictures” and Sherry Lansing, former executive director of “Paramount” studios.
According to the indictment, a copy of which was seen by Agence France-Presse, the forty-year-old man was contacting film specialists from different fields and offering them valuable job opportunities in fictitious projects. The only condition required was that they travel to Indonesia for preliminary work.
The victims were stripped of their money upon their arrival in the country by partners demanding “transfer fees” and huge advances that were supposed to be returned to them later during the production work.
The victims never got their money back, and whoever dared to question or complain about these practices was intimidated by Tahilramani, who threatened his victims with pictures of their children or with “cutting them up,” according to the indictment.
The Indonesian man’s defense attorneys objected to his extradition to the United States, considering that prison conditions there violate human rights, and focused on the fact that subjecting him to nearly solitary confinement negatively affects his health.
The decision to issue an extradition order for the man rests with Home Secretary Soyla Braverman.
The HarperCollins Publishing House bought the rights to this story full of developments, and it was written by former Hollywood Reporter Scott Johnson, and it was released in bookstores on Tuesday.