Indonesian man 'Con Queen of Hollywood' arrested for duping people

Police arrested 41-year-old Hargobind Tahilramani who is more popularly known as Con Queen of Hollywood from Manchester on November 26 after years-long investigation.

According to a report published in The Hollywood Reporter, Hargobind is an Indonesian man who went by the name Gobind Tahil at the time of the arrest, impersonated powerful female figures, including several Hollywood notables like Amy Pascal and Kathleen Kennedy, and then used these personas to convince people that he will make their careers in the creative arts. He made them travel to Indonesia on the promise of work. Once there, he made them pay for bogus services such as driving, fixing with the promise of reimbursement and then eventually disappearing with their money. He has duped many people in this manner.

Beginning as early as 2015, the hunt for Hargobind has been on for sometime now. He has allegedly lured many people into a series of his impersonation scams. The report states that the scams were sophisticated catfishing operations as he would use accents and voices and allegedly passed himself off as several powerful female executives. 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 high-profile people, Hargobind also sought out highly visible people in other areas, including media, politics and international business.

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As recently as last month, the Indonesian man was continuing to convince people to send him money.

The Hollywood Reporter states that within the last year, he had impersonated at least two dozen Hollywood names, both men and women, who have worked as producers, directors, casting agents and managers, among them several figures who worked on tentpole Marvel productions.

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Under this scam he would target the ordinary working people including makeup artists, photographers, actors and stunt performers. Using the bona fides of the people whose identities he impersonated, he convinced many of the marks to travel to Indonesia on lavish promises of work and huge budgets.

This is not his first brush with law enforcement as in 2006, police arrested him on charges of embezzlement in Indonesia, and he was sentenced to several months in Cipinang Penitentiary, a notorious complex that has housed political prisoners for decades.

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