'It was hard to prove crimes had even taken place, rather than simply business deals gone wrong, allowing the con artist to operate for years with impunity.'
She tormented studio executives, actors, makeup artists, security guys, photographers, screenwriters, athletes, even bobsledders and scuba divers for years—until corporate investigator Nicoletta Kotsianas was put on the case.It was a warm, overcast afternoon in August 2019, and Joe Scarnici was pumped.
On Monday evening in New York City, Scarnici, his assistant, and another photographer headed for dinner in Midtown. As Scarnici was recounting his Indonesian adventure, Albert rang, saying Ong wanted to speak to him. He and Ong had been calling incessantly since Scarnici left Jakarta to discuss his return.
Kotsianas is a senior director at corporate investigations firm K2 Intelligence, which offers investigative, compliance, and cyber-defense services. Its investigators have worked on behalf of Bernie Madoff’s victims to try to recover as much money as possible.
Until, that is, Kotsianas learned that sometimes the con went much further than phone calls. She began hearing that some of the victims had been convinced to fly to Jakarta, although at that point it was unclear why.
It wasn’t just British film-industry professionals being targeted. Victims hailed from a variety of countries and professions. “Actors, makeup artists, security guys, photographers, screenwriters,” Kotsianas ticks off on her fingers. “Bobsledders, athletes, mountain climbers, scuba divers.” Bobsledders? “You’re an expert on this thing,” Kotsianas says, mimicking the scammer’s sales pitch. “I’m interested in expanding into Asia.
But there was one element of the scam that didn’t make sense. Although the victims were losing thousands of dollars, at least part of that was spent on airfare, and what the con artist was left with just didn’t correspond with the amount of effort she put in. “Other impersonation scams that I’ve personally investigated work within business hours,” Kotsianas acknowledges. “It’s a business: You’re clocking in, clocking out.
At the very beginning of the investigation, Kotsianas says, “I thought it was two people.” From the information gleaned via the victims, it was clear the con artist wasn’t acting alone. There was the chauffeur in Jakarta, the cutouts doing the technical bits , and occasionally other hired help: secretaries, tour guides, even a Caucasian man who actually supervised some auditions in Jakarta in one of the earliest iterations of the scam.
Victoria Alonso is executive vice president of production at Marvel Studios, where she is credited on 24 superhero movies, includingan unprecedented accomplishment in an industry long dominated by men. In April 2019, just days before the world premiere ofa seminal moment in her career that had been over a decade in the making, Alonso found out she had been caught up in the con artist’s web after receiving an unsettling message fromactor Josh Brolin.
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